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Suicide During Long Wait For Hearing And A Mother's Pain

From the Gaston, NC Gazette of March 29:

Less than a month before he committed suicide in March 2007, David "Joey" McKee's manic depression landed him in a hospital one last time.

A doctor's only solution was for McKee to somehow begin taking the prescribed antidepressants that he simply couldn't afford.

"The doctor told me no one is going to help him without insurance," said his mother, Lynn McKee.

McKee had been fighting a losing battle for two years to receive Social Security disability. The delays he experienced in waiting to learn whether he would qualify is typical of what people see across the country, and particularly in Charlotte.

Across the nation, a person applying for Social Security disability must wait an average of 511 days to receive an initial hearing. At Charlotte office, which handles applications from across the region, the average wait time for a hearing is 705 days, according to a recent national report.

And from the same newspaper on March 30:

Cars and trucks whizzing south on I-85 offered the only background music as Lynn McKee knelt by the memorial to her son on a windy morning this month.

The homemade wreath and Easter flowers she brought were carefully arranged beside a small cross, and stepping-stones etched with the words "harmony" and "wonder."

It was hard for McKee not to come to the overpass at Exit 5 in Cleveland County after David "Joey" McKee, 21, of Gastonia, committed suicide there a little more than a year ago.

Her visits have become less frequent over time. But for her and Joey McKee's other loved ones, the pain remains.

"Have I healed? No," said Lynn McKee "I can get up and go to work. I can get through most of the day without getting depressed.

"My heart is still broken wide open." ...

Lynn McKee blames her son's suicide largely on delays he encountered in applying for Social Security disability payments. Such delays have plagued the system and caused a backlog of cases across the nation in recent years.

Two House Members On Social Security Backlogs

From the Kansas City Star:

We read with grave concern The Star’s article (3/23, Moneywise, “Entitled and exhausted”) on the severe disability case backlog now plaguing the Social Security Administration.

Fifteen thousand Kansans are awaiting court hearings to determine their eligibility for disability benefits. Many of those 15,000 have suffered severe injuries or illnesses. Many are enduring a terminal disease or debilitating pain. At this time, when they are most vulnerable, they cannot afford bureaucratic delays.

In Kansas, the average Social Security disability appeal has stretched to 21 months — the longest delay in the nation. It is intolerable that anyone must wait nearly two years before receiving the benefits they deserve.

Today’s backlog crisis has many roots. Two decades ago, SSA employed more than 80,000 staffers to process benefit applications. Now, that number has fallen to 60,000, even as the rate of applications has risen sharply.

For six years, SSA has submitted its annual funding request only to the president — not to Congress, as it is legally authorized to do.

As members of the House, we have sponsored legislation to require SSA to submit its funding request directly to Congress each year. Once the legislative branch finally knows how much funding is required to eliminate the backlogs, Congress can at last respond with the resources necessary.

Kansans deserve nothing less.

U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore
Lenexa
U.S. Rep. Nancy Boyda
Topeka

Social Security Disability Protest In France

From AFP:

Thousands of disabled people demonstrated in the streets of Paris to demand higher benefit payments ...

Protestors in wheelchairs and on crutches, wearing red shirts, were joined in Paris by HIV positive patients, blind demonstrators with guide dogs and others, behind a banner urgently demanding "income to survive."

Arnaud de Broca, president of Fnath, one of around 100 campaign groups in the demonstration, said they wanted an increase in the disability allowance -- currently 628 euros (990 dollars) per month for a disabled adult.

"You can't live on that," he said.

The Death Of Newspapers

If you read blogs such as this on a regular basis, you ought to read Eric Alterman's piece in this week's New Yorker magazine, "Out Of Print," about the rapid decline and impending death of newspapers. The culprit is the new media, of which this blog is a tiny part. Only 19% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 even look at a daily newspaper.

Alterman does not miss the irony, obvious to readers of this blog, that the new media are heavily dependent upon newspapers for their content.

I have had occasion to talk with reporters from the traditional media on several occasions lately. They alway seem to ask where they could go to learn more about what is going on at Social Security. For obvious reasons, I always mention this blog. The response has always been the same, an audible sneer of contempt from the reporter.

SSI Monthly Stats

The Social Security Administration has issued its monthly statistical package for the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program.

New OMB Filing

Social Security must get approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which is part of the White House, before publishing any rule-making document in the Federal Register. This item was filed yesterday:

AGENCY: SSA	RIN: 0960-AG74
TITLE: Revised Medical Criteria for Evaluating Cardiovascular Disorders (3477A)
STAGE: Prerule	ECONOMICALLY SIGNIFICANT: No
** RECEIVED DATE: 03/27/2008	LEGAL DEADLINE: None

Politician Helps In New York

From the Times Herald-Record of the Hudson Valley in New York:

With some high-profile intervention, electrician Robert Veneziali is about to get the disability benefits he deserves.

Veneziali hated going on disability. He's worked all his life and he's proud of it. But the type of multiple sclerosis he suffers from is unpredictable. One day he was fine, the next, he had hardly enough strength to call for help.

So when he called for help to the agency designed to provide working people with exactly that, he was devastated when that agency decided he wasn't sick enough to qualify for benefits.

Try back in another 18 months, they said. But he had a wife and three kids to support.

Veneziali's mother, Elaine, who had seen her son consumed by the disease, was having none of it. Last January, she called Rep. John Hall, D-Dover Plains, who had seen a report alleging that a bureaucratic "culture of denial" permeated some Social Security Administration offices.

Hall paid a well-publicized visit to Elaine Veniziali's home in February. He called her son's treatment "unconscionable." He threatened a federal inquiry.

Wednesday, Veneziali learned his appeal had been approved for disability benefits by an SSA review board. The benefits are retroactive to August, when he first applied for them. He'll get about $1,300 a month, plus about $1,200 for the kids.