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Politicians Consider Capping Social Security Benefits

Apr 7

Posted by Hal LaPray in Disability News, Social Security Articles

In the wake of the massive increases to the national deficit brought on by changes made by the Obama Administration, many voters and politicians are wondering where the money to balance the scales between red and black is going to come from. This leaves some politicians eying the already troubled Social Security trust fund as the possible answer to this country’s deficit woes.

Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and various other social health programs combine to make up 40 percent of the federal budget. Under the current law, the budgets for these programs will increase. This means that the national deficit will also increase in the coming years. Politicians say there are two very hard choices they must make in order to get a handle on the ever-expanding deficit. Those choices are raising taxes on the rich and/or middle class or cutting the federally funded health care programs so that they cannot be expanded.

Erskine Bowles heads President Obama's Debt Reduction Commission

Erskine Bowles heads President Obama's Debt Reduction Commission

Erskine B. Bowles, the co-chair of President Obama’s Debt Reduction Commission, said: “As Senator Simpson and I have said all along, everything is on the table. No one has mentioned to me taking anything off the table.”  The Senator Simpson referred to is a former Republican senator from Wyoming, who along with Bowles, co-chairs the commission.

"As Senator Simpson and I have said all along, everything is on the table. No one has mentioned to me taking anything off the table."

Voters expressed their opposition to both in a recent poll conducted by Quinnipiac University. A panel of nearly two thousand registered voters was polled on their feelings for the proposed choices that politicians were prepared to make. Of those participating in the poll, more than seventy five percent opposed both options. Sixty percent say that the government should make increasing taxes on households making more than $250,000 a major component in reducing the deficit while seventy two percent stated that taxes should be raised on households making more than one million should be a major component in reducing the deficit.

Seventy six percent of poll participants agreed that cuts to Social Security and Medicare spending should not be the only way the government works to decrease the deficit. Forty two percent were in favor of a combination of spending cuts and tax hikes. However, fifty two percent of those stated that there should be more spending cuts than tax hikes in the combination-based solution to reducing the national deficit.

Whatever the final solution to the problem is, eighty four percent of those polled agreed that the middle class will have to make financial sacrifices in order to reduce the deficit. Four out of five participants are in favor of raising the taxes on the wealthiest in order to generate revenue. However, there are not enough households that fall into this tax bracket to have any real effect on reducing the deficit.

It will be interesting to watch how this unfolds in the coming years and to see which tax bracket was faced with the most tax hikes and financial sacrifices for the sake of reducing the national deficit.

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Disabled Without Health Insurance? You’re Not Alone

Apr 1

Posted by Hal LaPray in Disability News, Personal Stories - Social Security Disability, Social Security Disability, Social Security Disability Denials

According to government sources, there are approximately 30 million uninsured citizens in this country. The majority of these are working in jobs where health care plans are not offered by their employers. Although many of the uninsured do not make enough money to purchase private health insurance on their own, their incomes still render them ineligible for government-funded health programs. We could assume that these 30 million Americans are in relatively good health and that their out-of-pocket medical expenses are little to non-existent. However, we would be sadly mistaken.

Many Disabled Americans Still Uninsured

Included in those 30 million uninsured is a demographic of people who not only do not qualify for government-funded health care programs, but are also disabled and/or terminally ill. While their medical conditions may warrant them being approved for programs such as Social Security Disability according to one doctor’s diagnosis, the guidelines set forth by the doctors employed by the Social Security Administration often tell a different story.

Disabled with no health insurance

Wanda Reddick and her husband, Carl. Wanda became disabled and lost her job, leaving them both without health insurance benefits.

Wanda Reddick, 61 of Tennessee, is one of millions of Americans caught in the red tape of the flawed  Social Security system. Reddick suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and requires a number of medications plus a supply of oxygen in order to survive. Despite her disability, Reddick worked as long as she was able. She spent three days in the hospital and took twelve weeks of sick leave. As a result, Reddick lost her job and what insurance coverage she had. Reddick was eventually diagnosed as being disabled due to the COPD by a private doctor and unable to return to work. However, when she was examined by the Social Security Administration’s doctor, she was told she was not disabled and therefore did not qualify for Supplemental Social Security Income (SSI).

"The whole system is a mess. It’s just a shame….. like going to the end of a road and finding there’s nothing, but a drop off."

In the meantime, Reddick is without some of the medications that help her to breathe. One of her prescriptions costs $194. Reddick said she hasn’t gotten it filled because she cannot afford it. It’s one of five prescriptions that remain unfilled due to their cost. She still has to wait a year before she qualifies for Medicare. Meanwhile her husband Carl, who is 71 with a host of ailments of his own, receives his medications through Medicare. Instead of using the supply of oxygen that was prescribed to him for his own breathing problems, he gives it to Wanda.

In the interim, as they wait to appeal Wanda’s denial, they boil water on the stove to produce steam. Carl says it helps them breathe. Wanda’s letter of denial was dated March 15th – and it gave her sixty days to plead her case to the Social Security Administration Appeals Board. Carl’s frustration was obvious when he voiced his feelings on the situation.

“The whole system is a mess. It’s just a shame….. like going to the end of a road and finding there’s nothing, but a drop off.”

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California SSI Recipient Starts Online Petitition to Protest Decreased Benefits

Aug 10

Posted by Hal LaPray in Disability News, Social Security Articles, Social Security Disability, Supplemental Security Income (SSI)

california-economyFran Cannon, a Californian who depends on Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits for her livelihood, has started an online petition to protest the recent reduction in Social Security disability benefits for SSI recipients in California.

"A key characteristic of a mature political society is the willingness and ability of that society to support those who cannot otherwise support themselves"

With California being faced with a budget crisis, steps have been taken to reduce payments of benefit recipients in that state.  While SSI is a federal program, many states supplement the monthly income benefit checks from their own budgets.  Recently the amount supplemented by California has been reduced two times, to levels that were extant four years ago.

This is such a shame.  A key characteristic of a mature political society is the willingness and ability of that society to support those who cannot otherwise support themselves.  People who live on Supplemental Income Benefits (SSI) are already faced with financial difficulties that few Americans truly understand.  These are people who have been declared wholly disabled and unable to earn a living, including people who are blind, elderly, or mentally disabled.

While economic downturns and budget shortfalls can be expected from time to time, one would certainly hope that our civic leaders and public officials would weigh very carefully all options, alternatives and consequences of such a decision, considering the social and economic ripple-effect impact across the spectrum.  Decisions like this should be made after all other solutions have either failed.

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Social Security Holds Compassionate Allowance Hearing For Early-Onset Alzheimers Patients

Aug 7

Posted by Hal LaPray in Alzheimer's Disease, Disability News, Diseases And Conditions, Social Security Disability

Social Security To Add Early Alzheimers To Compassionate Allowance Listings

Officials from the Social Security Administration met last month in an Outreach Hearing to discuss the idea of adding Early-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease and other related dementia illnesses to the Compassionate Allowance Listings.

Testimony was given by Harry Johns, President and CEO of the Alzheimer’s Association.  In an effort to point out that Alzheimer’s Disease can strike before retirement age Mr. Johns stated, ” In the past 3 years, the Alzheimer’s Association has conducted Town Hall Meetings for people with early-stage Alzheimer’s and other dementias. More than half of the people with early-stage Alzheimer’s or dementia who participated in these meetings had been diagnosed before age 65.”

Mr. Johns continued by commenting on how individuals who are diagnosed with Early-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease encounter loss of job, income and health insurance.  “More importantly”, he continued,” we’ve heard a lot about problems many of them have had in applying for and being found eligible for Socil Security Disability Income (SSDI).”

In a March 2008 CBS News report, Dr. Alan Levey, director of Alzheimer’s Research at Emory University stated, “People are still working, then have families, it affects them in amuch different way than if they had been retired for ten years as is often the case.”  Approximately ten percent of all Alzheimer’s patients contract the disease before age 65, and although it is rare, some patients contract the disease in their 50’s.

Compassionate Allowance Listings are a way that the Social Security Administration can quickly identify diseases and conditions that ultimately will qualify under the Listing of Impairments.  The initial list contained 50 conditions and hearings are held to discuss making additions from time to time.

You can watch the videocast of the hearing here.

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Increasing Claims Puts New Pressures on Social Security

Aug 6

Posted by Hal LaPray in Disability News, Retirement, Social Security Disability

Social Security Filings On The Rise

Social Security Disability Claims On The Rise

Recent efforts by the Social Security Administration to cut through a massive backlog of disability claims is being tempered by a sharp, spiked rise in applications this year.  Experts blame the current economic downturn, and the expansive increase in applications shows no signs of slowing.

Last March, The Social Security Administration revealed that as many as 3 million new applications were expected in 2009, however this week the Associated Press reported that SSA officials are now expecting more than 3.3 million claims to be filed.

As one would expect, the surge in filings has increased the backlog of those waiting to have their disability claim processed by a whopping 30 percent.

The Social Security Disability Program Under Fire

In today’s hostile, polarized political climate, many things are said about the viability and long-term sustainability of the Social Security benefits programs.  News networks, television reports, radio personalities and political pundits take extreme positions on whether the Social Security disability program needs a complete overhaul to avoid total collapse, or whether the program simply needs fine-tuning to stay afloat. Economists and financial experts disagree on most of these matters, indicating that in truth, no one really knows for sure.

Social Security Facts

The Social Security benefits program is a pay-as-you-go service.  In other words, the benefits received by today’s retirees and disabled are paid for by today’s workers.  As more people retire or become disabled, more workers are needed to pay into the program.  As life expectancy increases and as birth rates decline, then the amount of money that’s needed to sustain the program must increase per capita.  Over time, there will be fewer workers to support more disabled and retired persons.

Projections About Social Security’s Future

Based on workforce trends and rate of increasing filings, the Social Security Administration predicts that as soon as 2017 there will not be enough workers to support the number of retirees and disabled benefit recipients.  However, a Social Security trust fund exists (at least on the general ledger) that is supposed to be credited by today’s payroll surpluses, pushing sustainability predictions to 2041.  Many analysts do not believe that the program will remain viable for that long without deep, fundamental changes.  Others claim that the skeptics are merely fear-mongers, trying to stir up controversy and debate for political gain.

Many academic political scientists argue that it is probably safe to simply trust the Social Security Administration’s predictions on the matter.  It has been said that that any federal bureaucracy’s first goal is to remain solvent, and any underestimation of future fiscal needs would only serve to injure the administration’s need for survival.

Ultimately, members of Congress appear to unanimously support the program as a whole, and history shows that legislators tend to work together when it comes to maintaining social programs that benefit all Americans regardless of social class or political affiliation.  And, although the prescription for a long-term solution is uncertain, most agree that the prognosis is good.

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