Readers have heard me rail about the stupidity of Social Security Disability, which is one huge factor for the draining of both that program and Medicare. Anyone can claim to be disabled, especially mentally disabled, and avoid work and get paid every month and get Medicare, usually free. As you might imagine, given the number of fraudsters and slackers we have in this country, the Social Security disability rolls have soared and are now up to a startling 10 million Americans or so, and we have a total of 37 million people who claim to be disabled in some way. This is absolute bullshit, and should be addressed immediately, but won’t be because all those people vote. So one solution is that unless it is shown beyond any reasonable doubt that you are so physically disabled that you really can’t work, you don’t get to vote. That would make it easier for politicians to do the right thing and severely cut the program back and eliminate automatic eligibility for Medicare.
What is really maddening is that I see many people with real mental and physical disabilities who are working, it is completely unfair to them for the fraudsters and slackers to use SS disability and it shows that most disabled people can in fact do some kind of work and it provides some meaning and purpose for their difficult lives. So what should happen is an immediate review of the eligibility of every person on SS disability, with a requirement that the person has the burden of proof to demonstrate their disability to the point that they can’t work. Physicians and lawyers have turned this into a cottage industry. No legal fees should be paid to any attorney who contests the government’s determination; in fact there should be no appeals from those determinations. The government should hire or contract with physicians who will be objective and their determination of disability should be binding unless five physicians, all paid for by the disabled person state to the contrary.
This program is bleeding us hundreds of billions of dollars every year. It has to stop, and it has to stop now. Doing so would extend the life of Social Security and Medicare by several years and force slackers to go back to work, and we need more workers.
Why do the own occupation disability companies such as The Standard require all their own occupation disabled clients apply for SS disability??? I think this is another example of the government being in cahoots with big insurance.
Probably so they don’t have to pay health insurance, let the government take care of that. These employees must not make very much. To remain eligible for social security disability benefits there is a monthly earnings threshold that the individual must remain below.
It would be interesting if you could elaborate more on your idea on disfranchising disabled citizens, perhaps in a separate post.
that was pretty much sarcasm, aimed at Dems buying of votes by handing out freebies