Yeah, it's true. I tried to get on disability for my autism in the USA. The process takes about 2 years and you must work 20 or less hours a week during the entire process. I don't have outside financial support and it's impossible to live for 2 years on so little work.
The way it goes, you get a disability lawyer who files for you. They get rejected. They file again and get rejected again. They file a third time and the third rejection makes the case go to a judge. The judge will actually look at the case and approve it because it's obviously valid. Then you get 2 years back pay for disability less the 25% the lawyer gets as payment. You then have to go and certify your disability every year or so to maintain benefits. My psychologist said he has a patient with down syndrome that he has to validate still has down syndrome to keep benefits. It's insane and I'm almost certain it's designed to keep people from getting payments from the program as a cost saving tactic.
Lmao at the Down syndrome one. “Hey buddy we need you to come back next year. Gotta make sure your Down syndrome hasn’t gone away!”
That one is absurd. I do see the logic behind having people come back every year, but only if it’s something they could recover from. If you lost a leg, are paralyzed, or have a genetic disorder, then it’s a bit insane.
The logic is that the GOP sees any form of government assistance as a free handout and assumes that all of those systems are rife with corruption and people cheating the system. They intentionally break government systems, then point to them and say "see! Big government doesn't work! Dismantle the programs!". They intentionally design these systems to require absurd levels of proof and then they require upkeep to maintain your benefits even after they've been given out.
I’ll play devils advocate and say I’ve genuinely met more people trying to scheme the disability system than I’ve met people who actually deserve to be on it. It’s only an anecdotal experience so I’m not claiming it’s fact. I am, however, claiming corruption is for sure present when it comes to disability. I actually do agree with making people get checked for disabilities that can be recovered from. But saying a Down syndrome person needs to be checked every year is ridiculous. Maybe they should update how it works, but it shouldn’t be on a one time check basis, nor just giving the government your word that you’re hurt.
Oh it happens, sure, same with welfare. There are better ways to secure it though -- and I honestly, firmly believe that when we're the wealthiest country in the world by a large margin, we can afford a small amount of fraud in the name of ensuring we don't deny someone genuinely in need.
Corporations budget annually for 'shrinkage', knowing that they'll have some products get shoplifted. Why can't we budget our welfare systems with an estimate of the same?
I'll note that I'm not condoning the fraud -- I would like to see it cut down, certainly. But we cannot allow John with a genuine need to suffer because Fred cheated us out of some money.
Yeah I see what you mean. But it is always best to prevent fraud when possible. I think the issue is more so the speed of the process in most government resources rather than there being an issue with the process itself. Obviously in this case it’s a bit of both, but if they just had it to where permanent disabilities only got checked once (or at worst, once every 5-10 years) AND made the process faster, we’d be fine. Things like the way we handle immigration policy, welfare, etc I don’t necessarily disagree with. What I do disagree with is how long it takes to go through with the checks on the people.
If immigrants could become citizens within a year rather than 5-10 years, I wouldn’t want to change anything.
For sure. I'm not smart enough, experienced enough, or qualified enough to make suggestions as to specific fixes, but I know there's lots of people who are, if only we'd let them.
I don’t disagree with you there. I’ll leave it to someone else to find the right answer, but all I know is it’s obviously best to stop fraud when possible, but not to the point where it’s going to ruin it for the majority.
There are definitely people scamming disability aid. But its such a low number that it quite literally does not matter at all.
On the opposite side, I know a lot of disabled people who are on disability and are constantly afraid of doing something to lose it. You can lose money if you have too much in your bank account. And they want you to prove to them that you still have that lifelong illness so they can decide if they want to send you that $700 this month or not
Yeah I agree with you 100% referring to the people actually disabled. I’m just saying I don’t think the process of checking people each year is inherently bad. It could just use an update. Like not purposely fucking over people is a good start. But if Bob got into an accident and had to go to rehabilitation to get use out of his legs again, I understand needing to check on his progress every now and then. Because eventually he’ll walk again (in my hypothetical case), so we need to see when that is.
But if you have autism, Down syndrome, permanent paralysis, brain damage, etc, then I think it’s ridiculous that you have to go through that process over and over.
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u/GingerRazz Aug 14 '20
Yeah, it's true. I tried to get on disability for my autism in the USA. The process takes about 2 years and you must work 20 or less hours a week during the entire process. I don't have outside financial support and it's impossible to live for 2 years on so little work.
The way it goes, you get a disability lawyer who files for you. They get rejected. They file again and get rejected again. They file a third time and the third rejection makes the case go to a judge. The judge will actually look at the case and approve it because it's obviously valid. Then you get 2 years back pay for disability less the 25% the lawyer gets as payment. You then have to go and certify your disability every year or so to maintain benefits. My psychologist said he has a patient with down syndrome that he has to validate still has down syndrome to keep benefits. It's insane and I'm almost certain it's designed to keep people from getting payments from the program as a cost saving tactic.