12 votes

America’s safety net for people with disabilities was never secure. In the pandemic, it’s failing them.

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  1. spit-evil-olive-tips
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    Disgusting details about how Kafkaesque the SSDI program is: In order to prevent people from "abusing" it, they add so many hoops to jump through that it ends up not benefiting many of the people...

    Disgusting details about how Kafkaesque the SSDI program is:

    If an applicant appeals an initial denial (3 out of 4 initial applications are denied), the wait for a final decision from the court is long — for many, too long. From 2008 through 2019, nearly 110,000 people died before receiving a decision about their appeal, according to the Government Accountability Office. From 2014 to 2019, 48,000 people filed for bankruptcy awaiting a decision. The waiting doesn’t end there. After an application is approved, there is a five-month “waiting period” starting from when the SSA determines the disability began, for which a person does not collect any benefits. There is also a 24-month waiting period from the start of SSDI payments to get Medicare.

    In order to prevent people from "abusing" it, they add so many hoops to jump through that it ends up not benefiting many of the people it's supposed to legitimately help.

    3 votes