Social Security has been a hot button issue for at least the past two major elections. It does not matter if you are passionately for it or passionately against it; this government benefit likely affects us all. This American Life, a radio program of Chicago Public Radio, recently aired a program called “Trends with Benefits” which discussed Social Security disability benefits and how the number has nearly doubled over the last 15 years. Planet Money’s Chana Joffe-Walt spent six months investigating disability and focused on this one town in Hale County, Alabama, where 1 in 4 of the population are receiving Social Security disability benefits. Despite her in-depth study, it still seems she failed to glean one very important benefit of Social Security disability: the fact that it provides medical insurance.
My husband is a lawyer and has been representing clients in their appeals for Social Security Disability for over 30 years. I have worked with him for 20 years and have seen hundreds of cases of disability ranging from the severe to the not so severe. Yes, there have been a very few people who obtained their disability, and I was not completely convinced that they were completely disabled, but many, many more failed to obtain benefits when they really should have won. I talk with these people multiple times throughout this process, help in obtaining their medical records, help fill out paperwork and file their appeals online. Through the years, I have come to realize several problems with the entire disability process. The next few posts will be about Social Security disability from my viewpoint of 20 years experience working with these types of cases.
What I have discovered that Joffe-Walt did not is that healthcare reform is absolutely necessary in order to change the future of Social Security disability. I feel it is the key to reducing applications, reducing payments, and shortening the payout of current payments. I have seen many people who have been forced to file for disability instead of working in order to obtain medical insurance. Claimants are forced to remain on disability and not return to work, because of medical insurance. Without healthcare reform, the number of applications and amount of money spent on disability benefits will only get worse.
In the next four posts, I plan to answer the following questions: What is disability? Why is healthcare and medical insurance so important? What causes disabilities? Why do disability benefits seem to be permanent?
3 comments:
I agree with you but i also tend to think that people think that any form of SSD is the easy way out. And when confronted about working from home like sewing or crocheting or the crafty stuff they don't seem to want to do it. I understand that any form of SSD is based off how much you pay in in a time frame, but this is a minimum amount that no one person would ever be able to survive with, which in turn causes the need for supplemental income and well they don't want to do that.
Actually, I will be addressing this issue later. I have had many people begin to work after they obtain their disability and get medical care which causes them to feel better. The problem is that if you work for an extended period, you will lose your disability benefits and then lose your insurance which ends up plunging you back into the mess you were in before.
I agree, but I am not saying work a lot whole. Find something that you like to do at your house.
But I think they main reason why their needs to be medical reform is the reimbursement cost to the doctors. There are different insurance companies out there that based their reimbursement rates on that of Medicare and then it makes it hard for a person to seek adequate help when they need it. Because the person finds out that nobody is willing to touch them because of their insurance.
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