Friday, June 19, 2009

My Soapbox (Again)

As I understand it, statistically, about 2/3 of all Social Security disability benefit applications are initially denied for one reason or another. Of those who go ahead with the appeal process, about 2/3 are subsequently approved. Oh, another statistic. The normal backlog of disability claims is up to about 500 days, twice what it was several years ago.
Does this sound like your government doing all it can to serve you? Or does this sound like bureaucracy that is broken, yet going through the motions?
One more thing. Do you realize that this has been going on for years? This isn’t a recent thing. And those who are in charge have known about this problem for a long, long time and have yet to do anything to substantially change and improve the system.
I don’t often get on my soapbox in this blog, but this is worth mentioning. I don’t know if you’ve applied for disability benefits or if you will; but if you do, understand you have an uphill climb ahead. It’s no wonder that there are lawyers out there who advertise on TV saying that they can help you navigate the disability claims process. They’re probably needed in many cases so the ordinary person won’t make some error that will permanently bar them from the claims process.
I know the process needs to be strict enough to weed out those who would abuse the system. But isn’t there a way to do that, yet get the people who have need the benefits that they have coming to them? I don’t know the answer to that, but would hope that someone somehow would find out.

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