Mark Miller at Reuters writes that "House leaders appear to be maneuvering to push through an SSDI [Social Security Disability Insurance] fix during the lame duck session following the 2016 elections."
If this is the plan, it's not much of a plan. The timing of the exhaustion of the Disability Trust Fund probably won't come right in the December 2016/January 2017 time period. Even if it does, Social Security disability would become a red hot issue for the 2016 election. Do Republicans really want that?
5 comments:
This isn't going to change, shall I say LTD Insurance. How much will this cost the insurance industry, a lot of money to bump up those SSDI checks each month.
The Republican strategy is to needlessly force a showdown on either cutting Social Security Disability through what they call "reform" legislation or letting the fund run dry and forcing a 20% cut that way. In other words, they hold the disability fund hostage, as a the threat to achieve the disability cuts they want through legislation. Bonus points if they can spin doctor some of the resulting public outrage onto the Democrats.
That only works if people are so uninformed that they overlook the already widely reported stories on how the Republicans manufactured the crisis by acting to block the sensible, tried and true short term solution (reallocation). Scheming and plotting to cut vital benefits to people with disabilities, many of whom are impoverished even with their benefits, creates an image that would make Ebenezer Scrooge at his worse appear charitable and benevolent by comparison. Just the sort of thing to ensure a cut in public support in the year before an election.
Perhaps people are not as dumd as you think and are tired of the "tried and true short term solution". Quit borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. Fix it. A wholesale fruad investigation of disabled people would free up a lot of money. Making the Reps pay back their fees if the claimant is found fruadulent would also help..
Lets say, a person gets 1000 dollars a month for SSDI and he or she was getting 1100 dollars a month for LTD. So the insurance company has to pay the offset of a hundred dollars. Now with the 20% pay cut the insurance company has to pay 300 dollars a month. Like they say on ESPN, come on man.
Reallocation is a poor way of handling insurance cost overruns.
It would be like a health insurance company trying to recoup profits from life insurance to make up for the losses in health insurance.
Each fund needs to stand or fall on its own strengths and weaknesses.
Joe Frank
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