The amazing rise of disability in America

[Onkel Neal]

"Just suck all the benefits you can out of the system until everything is gone, and then you're on your own."

http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/

I know several people my age who are on SS disability, and a few who get disability payment for time in the military. Obviously, no one is "faking it" but as the article mentions, how many are on disabilty for things the rest of us cope with? There's a point coming where more and more people will see this as a "right", like health care and education.

A person on welfare costs a state money. That same resident on disability doesn't cost the state a cent, because the federal government covers the entire bill for people on disability. So states can save money by shifting people from welfare to disability. And the Public Consulting Group is glad to help.

PCG is a private company that states pay to comb their welfare rolls and move as many people as possible onto disability. "What we're offering is to work to identify those folks who have the highest likelihood of meeting disability criteria," Pat Coakley, who runs PCG's Social Security Advocacy Management team, told me.

The company has an office in eastern Washington state that's basically a call center, full of headsetted women in cubicles who make calls all day long to potentially disabled Americans, trying to help them discover and document their disabilities:

"The high blood pressure, how long have you been taking medications for that?" one PCG employee asked over the phone the day I visited the company. "Can you think of anything else that's been bothering you and disabling you and preventing you from working?"

The PCG agents help the potentially disabled fill out the Social Security disability application over the phone. And by help, I mean the agents actually do the filling out. When the potentially disabled don't have the right medical documentation to prove a disability, the agents at PCG help them get it. They call doctors' offices; they get records faxed. If the right medical records do not exist, PCG sets up doctors' appointments and calls applicants the day before to remind them of those appointments.

[GoldenRivet]

its ridiculous honestly.

[flatsixes]

Every day the bucket a-go a well,
One day the bottom a-go drop out.

[GoldenRivet]

it doesnt matter... as long as the problem is passed to the next generation to worry over.

I'm reminded of a MAD Magazine Fold In Page which displayed the progression of the American Bald Eagle being handed down to generation after generation.

it showed a strong, muscular, resolute looking eagle resting on the arm of a revolutionary soldier being handed down to his son...

by the end of the cartoon there was an old grumpy guy handing down a dead, featherless bird with XXs for eyes and its tongue hanging out to a kid with a look on his face indicating "what do you want me to do with that?"

I must have seen that in the early 1990s - but the image has stuck with me all these years and becomes more and more truthful with each passing year.

[AVGWarhawk]

All I can say...

[mookiemookie]

I think some of this may be attributed to the de-stigmatizing of mental illness. 50 years ago you would have been locked away for many forms of mental illness. Today its no big deal to make an appointment with a mental health care professional and get help and be on your way.

[Hottentot]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

I think some of this may be attributed to the de-stigmatizing of mental illness. 50 years ago you would have been locked away for many forms of mental illness. Today its no big deal to make an appointment with a mental health care professional and get help and be on your way.

Though likewise the same 50 years ago you would have more likely just been told to "snap out of it" instead of being recognized as someone needing help. Or that's the case in here at least.

A person whom I used to call a relative often pompously ranted how "people these days are good for nothing and need help for everything, whereas in 1940s men returning from the war needed no aid for returning to normal life." What he happily failed to notice and never accepted even shown it was that the vets were very prone, for example, to become alcoholics and had various other problems about which we even today rarely talk about.

Yeah, it sure feels that these days everyone is depressed or has some other form of diagnosis behind which some of them also hide. Schools are full of students with "mental problems" which even in my youth would have been classified as just being a little shy, more active than normal or whatever. I'd still rather take that over the former relative's fantasy world any day.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Hottentot

Though likewise the same 50 years ago you would have more likely just been told to "snap out of it" instead of being recognized as someone needing help. Or that's the case in here at least.

A person whom I used to call a relative often pompously ranted how "people these days are good for nothing and need help for everything, whereas in 1940s men returning from the war needed no aid for returning to normal life." What he happily failed to notice and never accepted even shown it was that the vets were very prone, for example, to become alcoholics and had various other problems about which we even today rarely talk about.

Yeah, it sure feels that these days everyone is depressed or has some other form of diagnosis behind which some of them also hide. Schools are full of students with "mental problems" which even in my youth would have been classified as just being a little shy, more active than normal or whatever. I'd still rather take that over the former relative's fantasy world any day.

That's a great point. We went from "cowardice" to "shell shock" in WW1 to "combat fatigue" or "exhaustion" in WW2 to "post traumatic stress disorder". It's kind of neat to see how the term used to describe the condition has become more descriptive and accurate as we have learned more and more about it.

[Aramike]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

I think some of this may be attributed to the de-stigmatizing of mental illness. 50 years ago you would have been locked away for many forms of mental illness. Today its no big deal to make an appointment with a mental health care professional and get help and be on your way.

I do agree with this, but here's the thing: just because something becomes less of a social stigma, doesn't mean that people are therefore less capable of dealing with the symptoms. I would think the opposite should be true, actually - as more people seek and receive treatment, less people should be truly debilitated.

What used to cause pain at work now causes an inability to even perform work even though the treatment is better? That seems unlikely.

[gimpy117]

I was hearing this on NPR.

The US hemoraged jobs, there was no where else for them to go

[Wolferz]

At people who seem heartless enough to marginalize the disabled of whom I am one. Yes, I'm on the Social Security disability rolls after suffering a massive stroke. So, here's the skinny on me...
I worked my entire adult life from 16 on up to 48. I served my country during six of those years. I never ever drew an unemployment check when I found myself out of work for whatever reason. I grabbed my bootstraps and found another job.
Sure, there are those out there who are milking the system but there are a lot more who would either die or turn to a life of crime to get by. Not a situation any of us wishes to face.
Social Security was invented as a safety net and it was a good idea in principle. At least until the senators and congress critters got their grubby paws on the surplus of cash that was forcefully deducted from mine and your paychecks. Nearly every recipient of SSD has their money invested in it and yes they are entitled to it no matter what anyone else thinks of their plight or the state of the federal finances. If DC hadn't been stealing from the trust all these years there would be plenty of money to keep it solvent for decades to come. But, that's not the case anymore. With the loss of so many jobs to the greedy corporations who moved operations to foreign soil to get cheap labor it was inevitable that the Social Security Trust fund would take a hit. As well as the tax rolls.
Basically, our elected leaders have driven the bus into a mire and it's too heavy to be pulled out of the muck without a super sized tow truck. Maybe if we put enough of the disabled on the rope and make them pull, it can be saved for future generations. Or, as some would have it, put the disabled on the end of a rope with a noose.
If you fellows think I need my neck stretched a bit, have at it. I don't care. Maybe I will go back to work(against doctor's orders) if threatened in that fashion. Just don't put your car in the blind spot of my left eye while I'm hauling ass down an interstate with 40 tons under my butt.
As for SSI...
SSI will keep you alive but just barely. It's no way to actually live. If you can get past having your dignity shoved in the dirt during the sign up process, go for it. Now the states who are as strapped for funds as the Feds want to kick the sucker fish off their budgets and onto the Fed budget I say shame on them. There are VA agents out there doing the same thing as this PCG outfit. I overheard one at a diner one evening trying to convince a vet to sign up for disability because he had stomach problems during and after his service. Not exactly kosher in my book. Lie cheat and steal seem to be the zeitgeist.

[fireftr18]

Part of the problem is with employers themselves. Firefighters and police officers in my city, legally must retire on disability if they have 1% disability. They don't even allow for transferring to desk work. We've been trying to get the city to change that as long as I remember. I know a few firefighters that were capable of doing the job without problem, didn't want to go, yet they had to retire on disability.

[Onkel Neal]

I posted this not pointing any fingers or judging anyone, as my first post shows. However, it is becoming a huge problem to pay for it, and that is open for discussion. We have states pushing to get people on disability to get them off welfare. If you are legitimately on disability, abuse of this safety net should concern you.

[Skybird]

People are allowed to vote.

People vote for those who promises them more candy than the other.

The time preference is such that the immediate advantage now (candy) is more attractive than the greater disadvantage in the distant future (bill).

People learn that this way, they can vote their candy.

What it all means? As long as politicians try to get voted by promising candy, and those wanting more candy than they give back into the candy pool are allowed to vote, it is unlikely that things will turn better. They will turn worse. Democratically turning worse, but turning worse nevertheless.

It is a principle inbuilt problem of democracy itself that cannot be avoided. At least not as long as humans are humans.

You are following the European example Neal. They call it "justice" and "solidarity". It is highly unfair and has nothing to do with justice, and it is an abuse of the word solidarity, but nevertheless they call it like that. With ham you catch mice.

[Wolferz]

Any nation that forgets its warriors will itself be forgotten