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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDisability backlog tops 1 million; thousands die on waitlist
https://www.yahoo.com/news/disability-backlog-tops-1-million-thousands-die-waitlist-122743401.html?.tsrc=jtc_news_indexangstlessk
(11,862 posts)Pope George Ringo II
(1,896 posts)The last of them, especially the ones with physical jobs, are hitting those ages where they're both feeling the effects of a working life and hitting an age it's hard to change careers. Once that group ages into retirement, we'll see a smaller number of applications as the GenXers age into prime disability years and SSA should be able to handle adjudicating that quantity. And there really are conditions out there where they just put you on hold (strokes, heart attacks) to see what your recovery is going to look like, or conditions which produce those weird complications with sixteen surgeries and thirty hospitalizations before things are right, and you just have to wait it out because that broken ankle simply can't get any more complicated, right?
That said, it's not like SSA hasn't had six decades or so to see the aging of baby boomers coming. They've really just been stalling until that wave passes over and even with this they really still are. Judges require support staff and you're not going to adjudicate any faster unless you have more decision writers, courtrooms, medical and vocational experts, intake specialists, and so forth. And don't even get me started on how they deny cancer claims pretty much automatically because they want to wait two years until you've recovered from chemo so they can just write you one big check for a known closed period of disability rather than get off their butts, write you a monthly check with possible medical coverage, and then do the work of keeping on top of when you recover. Either that, or just write one lump sum check to your estate, assuming they're unlucky enough to have to deal with survivors. And did I mention that they had six decades or so to see the baby boomer wave coming?