SSDI's Open Enrollment

Bryce Canyon, Utah - photo by JoAnn Sturman

Scott Sturman
fliesinyoureyes.com

Two years ago an article appeared on this site which noted the influx of patients admitted for surgery who were young, receiving Medicare benefits, and whose state of health did not correlate with their level of disability. (Did I Missing Something?) Now we are told at the present rate of depletion the SSDI Trust Fund will be defunct within five or six years.

The four predominant federal welfare and insurance programs are in serious trouble, and it is not just the Democrats who initiated them. Credit them for Medicare and Social Security, but SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance) was enacted during the Eisenhower Administration and SSI (Supplemental Security Income) during Nixon’s tenure. They share something in common: initially all were limited in scope with political assurances of financial prudence, but with time aggressive expansion ensued without regard to financial repercussions.

To review, SSDI is an insurance program funded through Social Security while SSI is a welfare program funded through the general tax fund. To be eligible for SSDI a person’s medical condition must have rendered them unable to work for at least one year or that condition prevents them from working for at least one year in the future or result in death. If after two years of receiving benefits, SSDI recipients are eligible for Medicare. In contrast SSI is a non insurance based program where eligibility is independent of work status, and recipients receive Medicaid benefits.

To understand how far SSDI has drifted from the original intent, it is useful to review its history. According to Professor Edward Berkowitz’s testimony to Congress in 2000, the intent and rules governing SSDI were debated hotly during Roosevelt’s New Deal twenty years before becoming law in 1956. Specifically, lawmakers confronted with economic hardships of the Great Depression were adamant the program was a disability program and not intended for unemployment compensation, otherwise admitting legions of unemployed people into the program would quickly exhaust available financial resources. Consequently, disability was defined as “an impairment of mind or body which continuously renders it impossible for the disabled person to follow any substantial gainful occupation” and was likely to last for “the rest of a person’s life.”

Today’s woeful state of affairs should come as no surprise. Although SSDI eligibility requirements are touted as strict, there is a broad scope of opinion among those who define disability. Last year 46.9% of all SSDI applications were approved with the highest rate of 63% occurring in the 00725 Zip Code in Puerto Rico. Furthermore, the applicant does not need to be injured on the job to receive the average $1070 per month stipend. Enrollment has ballooned to 8.5 million workers - nearly three time the number of twenty years ago. Most claims are not based on severe physical injury or incapacitating medical conditions like Lou Gehrig’s Disease or terminal cancer but nebulous, difficult to quantitate complaints like back pain and depression. With nearly open enrollment and funds rapidly dissipating, one would expect government agencies to monitor recipients to insure they are truly unable to function in the workplace in some capacity - right? Only 1% of SSDI enrollees ever return to work. SSDI has become primarily an unemployment program and a disability program secondarily. It is hardly reassuring that the 6.20% Social Security deduction taken from every paycheck is spent is such a frivolous manner.

The Occupy Wall Streeters are misdirected and protesting in the wrong places. They should hop in their VW vans, make a pilgrimage to Washington, D.C., and pitch their tents on the lawns of the White House and of every Congressman and Senator who spend this country into oblivion. Give them the message that we would be better off, if everyone of them resigned, enrolled in SSDI, and never “helped” us again with their brilliant ideas. In this case it is worth $1070 a month for the rest of their lives just to leave us alone.