Dissability increase on Melissa Harris-Perry. WTF did you think was

[brewens]

gonna happen? That would be directed at right-wingers that will point at those figures with disgust. Of course people are working the dissability program. Does anyone not know someone that has probably scammed the system?

Now it's more likley than ever. I honestly can't blame people for taking a job related injury and parlaying it into a dissability retirement. Not when they know they can't last forever doing what they are doing and have no retirement to look foreward to.

I'm currently working with a guy that claimed to have torn cartilege in his knee, doing a job where that would be extemely unlikely. I know knees too, having really torn mine and having one replaced. The story he told me does not jibe with another witnesses at all either. I'm sure it was a previous condition and he waited for the right opportunity to stage the "accident". That made it a work related injury and L&I paid for it. His wife has a great job and he has medical insurance, but getting L&I to cover it had to be thousands of dollars difference to him.

My own job related injury was legit but not exactly fair to my employer at the time. I did actually tear cartilege on the job but that was just the last straw. I'd done it before and just gutted it out, healed up and continued working. I'd say I kept working on a bad knee longer than most people could have. What wasn't fair was that it was really cumulative damage from previous jobs as well. The liability should have been spread out among two previous employers. You can't report it that way though. L&I needs to get ONE specific detailed injury report. You do not want them to even think of pre-existing condition. In my case there would not have been anything they could have found easily. I had injured that knee playing high school football in the 70s but the doctors I saw for it were long since retired.

I'm officially 35% dissabled with the one artificial knee but am working full-time. Thanks to L&I, I'm back at a job I can handle indefinitely so far as I can tell.

[NightWatcher]

1. I don't understand the vitriol for those who are on disability

Sure, I'll give you that some might be gaming the system, but they're not getting very much each month. A year ago I was diagnosed with multiple diseases. I got disability the first time I applied (so that let's you know how bad it was).

I get about a thousand a month (15000 a year). The last full year I worked I made 47k. I'd much rather not be sick and be able to work.

Sure some people (my step aunt) are fakers and game the system. Nobody's getting rich on disability.

Where's the rage about the rich people who cheat on taxes for far more than 15k a year? What about the corporations who get more than 15k in subsidies or benefits.

[MineralMan]

3. It's a right-wing meme, actually.

Dissing disability recipients is a favorite cause for the right-wingers. On the other hand, if they, themselves are getting disability payments, those are deserved, but everyone else is under suspicion. Typical.

[brewens]

5. My girlfriends ex is one of those right-wingers. He's a skilled mechanic

but took the first opportunity to claim back injury and become a full-time alcoholic/pill head. That doesn't stop him from being a die-hard hunter though. He's also an expert deadbeat dad.

[MineralMan]

6. Sorry. I don't know him. So I can't evaluate his disability.

I suspect you can't either. As someone who worked as an auto mechanic for some time, I can, however attest to that job's effect on backs. It's brutal, actually. That's why I stopped before my back disabled me. My father, who did that job all of his life, has very serious, permanent back injuries.

That the person you refer to is an asshole says nothing about his disability, though.

[brewens]

7. Well, he can still mechanic when he wants to. That I've seen. That doesn't

meant that he could handle it working full-time, I admit. He also can handle hunting some pretty rough terrain. I can't say he packs out the meat for sure, it could be he sticks the boys with that. I know for sure he could have handled working some kind of job. It's been 20 or more years. He never took advantage of any retraining or education opportunities.

One thing is that he says, "he doesn't believe in paying child support." I can't believe his kids have anything to do with him but he's still their dad. Their mom has pretty much left him alone on that one, not that she'd ever get anything out of him.

[randome]

8. There will ALWAYS be someone who takes advantage of the system.

Always. But having a viable safety net available means those ten percent or less are out of the way of the rest who want to be productive.

People who truly want to contribute to the world and/or their families will always rise above those who don't care.

It's the GOP's theme that those ten percent layabouts mean that EVERYONE needs to suffer. It's lazy thinking on their part.

[brewens]

9. Having had to babysit an alcoholic on the job, I've experienced another

thing right-wingers don't see clearly. If you cut some people off with the idea that you'll force them to get a job, you are also asking someone to hire them and others to work with them. Someone you wouldn't want working for you or with you.

The drunk I had to put up with was a business owners relative. Whatever I would have had to pay in additional taxes would have been well worth it to have been able to get rid of that guy. It would have been fine with me to have him sit at home and drink all day.

I understand that it's considerably harder to get disability for alcoholism these days. I actually know another guy that's disabled, bipolar and on medication. He's joked about that, saying he could ramp up the drinking if it'd get him more benefits. In his case, he's an expert painter that could have been on disability years before with the bipolar disorder and back problems. I know because I've seen him have to cancel a rafting trip because he couldn't get out of bed. He would have died first, rather than miss that trip.

[brewens]

4. I've got plenty of outrage for wealthy people that are screwing us. They're

the ones driving people to scam the system in many cases. They make it tougher on people with legitimate disabilities.

Quite a few people would love to stick it out to retirement if they were working a job where they could make it. Even if they didn't like the job. If there was a payoff, like there should be, like there used to be, they'd be rewarded for toughing it out. There are always a few lazy-asses that would rather bail out at the first opportunity but in my case, I realized that would not be enough money, even if I wanted to. I think I could easily have played the knee into a total disability.

[HiPointDem]

11. it wouldn't matter if the average payment was $10/month. the kind of people who get upset

about 'welfare cheats' don't care. any 'free money' to 'lazy cheats' is too much.

[MineralMan]

2. There's one thing I'm sure of. I never question the disability

status of anyone. Having worked with a Social Security Disability legal specialist to write the content for his website, I became very aware of how difficult it is to qualify for SSDI. Over 75% of applications are denied, and it really does require an attorney to get most disabilities covered.

So, I don't question those who receive disability payments. Ever. I am not walking in their shoes, so I cannot know their limitations.

The right-wing, on the other hand, is quick to dismiss disabilities. Unless, of course, they're getting disability payments themselves. Then they dismiss everyone else's disabilities. Ugh!

[woofless]

10. I'm with you MM.

Nobody who has dealt with the process thinks it is easy to scam. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to push through a false claim.

[TheKentuckian]

16. Right on, I think the case is easier to back up that it is to difficult to get disability

than to demonstrate the reverse which is fueled by anecdotes and just the general anxiety that someone somewhere is getting over some way on easy street with poverty level incomes.

It is a sickness and a serious part of the answer to the question "why can't we have nice things?", a strain of perverse jealousy (or avarice) that permeates a healthy cross section of our population. Possibly an incestuous cousin of "keeping up with Jones'', the wannabe bedroom police, soda monitors, drug warriors, and womb inspectors.
All pricks who cannot mind there own beeswax.

[Fawke Em]

12. No. I don't know anyone who is scamming the system.

My mother is on disability and has been since her husband died suddenly. She should have been on it before he died, but he was supporting her and she felt it would be extremely difficult to get.

I took her, immediately, to an attorney, explained how she tore her ankle to shreds falling off a client's porch (she was a home-health nurse) and had to have pins put in the ankle. The state put her through the ringer only to find out her condition was MUCH worse than she claimed: the screws were coming out and she had to have another surgery.

Needless to say, the attorneys took some of the back pay, but my mother is able to live on Social Security until she's actually of retirement age (another two years). I don't know how she would have lived - since she couldn't work - for seven years until she was eligible for Social Security.

[duffyduff]

13. Disability is hard to get, especially SSI.

Once you get it, then you have to account for every penny you spend.

[winter is coming]

18. Do you know what came to mind when you said "scamming the system"?

Bankers and corporate CEOs.

[Fawke Em]

19. Yes, that's true, but I don't know any of them. eom

[Akoto]

14. Hello! As a young person on disability, this is bullshit.

Scam the system? Please. It took me over two years plus a really good lawyer and University-level doctors to get approved. That was on my third try, when I went before the Administrative Law Judge (who actually had to look me in the eye as I told my story instead of rubber stamping a denial).

You can't just walk into the local SS office and get SSI/SSDI. It is a grueling, excruciatingly complex and delayed process for anyone who does not have the most severely obvious disabilities, such as paraplegia or something like that. I had a double whammy in that I am only 28. My disability first began to present at 17, went chronic in my mid twenties. I also have a disability which is rare and little known, an 'invisible' illness only very well educated doctors can see the signs of. I'll get back to that latter point in a bit, because it's important.

My first two applications were denied almost as a matter of course. On the second time around, even though I was going to a University-level specialist, they had me see a SS doctor. A homeopath who really had no clue what my condition was or how deeply the pain and pharmacy of medications impact my life. In the end, I was required to go before a judge on the third try, which is where most people have their best shot. Remember, this wasn't weeks or months. This was years of persistence, of languishing in my illness as the bureaucracy sought ways of denying me.

I was fortunate. When I went before the judge, my evidence and the credentials of my doctors overwhelmed the fact that I had a rare, invisible condition. The ruling was fully favorable. However, in order to get there, I had to stand before a conference table of strangers and relate every minute detail of my condition. My pain is pelvic in nature, and I mean everything pelvic, so you can imagine how humiliating that experience was.

As I became ill when I was young, I didn't have the work credits for SSDI, so I had to take SSI. I'm grateful because Medicaid came with it and pays for my many medications. Otherwise, I get $710/mo. That is the cap. I receive the cap because I have an agreement with SS that I'll pay my parents what's called Fair Share, or an equation based upon total expenses of the household. In my case, that's $370/mo. So, right there, you have my funds reduced to $340/mo. Ironically, I was keeping more money without paying fair share, but at least this helps my folks.

You must then consider the expenses that small amount of remaining disability funding has to go toward. Dental care, for example, is not covered unless you want to go to county health to get your tooth yanked. I have to maintain a very expensive diet consisting of various dried fruits and whole wheat in order to keep my gut moving, due to all of the pills. Then, you have clothes. You have gas bills to get to the doctor. So many things. If you're very lucky, you might manage to scrimp away a little each month and eventually buy something for yourself, like a book or a video game. Something to keep you sane while you're housebound.

Oh, and then there's the reviews. The medical reviews to prove that, yeah, your body's still torturing you. The financial reviews where they intrusively examine your expenses to see if you've ever violated the rules. I keep a book which notes everything I pay for. Every. Single. Receipt.

Now, about the invisible illness thing. The term refers to people who have disabling illnesses not readily apparent to the naked eye. When we think of the disabled, we think of people who are mangled or whose bodies are obviously not functional in some way. People don't tend to consider that someone may have a neuropathy, a degenerative spinal condition, a hip issue, or any other number of things. In my case, I have Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome with Pelvic Floor Myofascial Dysfunction. If you were to look at me, I'd seem as healthy as can be, yet I'm in constant pain. I walk with a cane so that I can catch myself when the neuropathic shocks come. I lay down and stand because I'm unable to sit. I dread going to the bathroom because the pain in the aftermath means having to sit in the tub for some relief.

Don't judge the disabled. No matter how they look to you (and we do get very good at hiding our illnesses - most of us don't want the attention or pity), they may be living a Hell you can't begin to imagine.

[brewens]

17. My main examples are decades old for sure, but I do have a friend

who recently got his claim approved for carpal tunnel. He sailed right through, so it's not always a nightmare. Had his surgery been successful, I'd think he could still have easily claimed to have the pain and made it. How hard could that be? Just repeat failing the therapy tests that got him the surgery in the first place. He worked at a munitions plant, an occupation that is notorious for that kind of injury. Still the surgery was intended to get him back to work there.

Another guy I know has been disabled for 30 years with a back injury. His story is that his pain was so severe, that when offered the opportunity to go back to school, he wasn't able to because he couldn't stand to sit in a chair for any length of time. I've seen him build a fence at his house. Bass season is almost upon us and I'll possibly go fishing with him. The dude actually stalked me one time to discover "The Mother Lode Hole", a secret I jealously guarded. He repays me by taking me out in his bass boat sometimes. He can launch and load a boat and sit in his chair fishin' from sunup to sundown. I know people see guys like that and get the wrong idea, but I never claimed that most people are scamming the system.

It's interesting that disability is expanding the way it is if it's so tough to get a claim approved. I'd blame some of the expansion on the way the job market is now. Even some fairly legitimate claims are probably people that would stick it out a few more years, if it would get them to a reasonable early retirement situation.

[Hekate]

20. Hang in there -- I hope you go into remission some day

Your condition sounds like Hell on Earth. Hopefully others will learn from your testimony.



Hekate

[OldDem2012]

15. Whatever. nt.

[lumberjack_jeff]

21. I personally do not know anyone who is scamming the system.

I work with the disabled (mostly developmentally disabled adults) but those fuckers are going after kids too.

Seriously you republican jackasses, the kid isn't faking downs syndrome. He's not faking fragile X. He's not faking autism.

I don't doubt that some people who are unable to work, might be able to if the economy were good enough that employers would make some accommodations. But "disability" is inherently related to the possibility of employment.