Disability
Everybody (except bleeding heart liberals) bemoans the existence of welfare leeches. You know who I mean; the Katrina deadbeat, the brood mares, the losers that milk welfare and WIC and free lunch programs and every other government handout.
How many of you know somebody that knows somebody that is out of work on disability?
Annual disability expenditures exceed that of welfare, unemployment insurance, and The Earned Income Tax Credit COMBINED. At least one presumably pays into unemployment insurance, but don't get me started on that horseshit, take-money-from-Exador-to-pay-other-people-to-make-brats program.
From 1984 to 2000, the number of non-elderly adults receiving benefits from Disability Insurance and/or Supplemental Security Income programs more than doubled from 3.8 to 7.7 million people.
As of 2002, 5.3% of all adults between 25 and 64 receive either SSI, DI, or both.
In 1980, congress attempted to clamp down on potential fraud in the system, by increasing health reassessments. Over the next three years 40% of the cases reviewed had benefits terminated for no longer meeting the medical standards. In other words, the deadbeat got healthy, but preferred to sit on his ass, or he wasn't disabled to begin with. 40% !!!!
Unfortunately, this crackdown was happening during an economic recession, so the politicians were feeling pressure for being mean. Awwww! Mean old government won't let me be a leech!
The pussies in congress then changed the law in 1984 to expand benefits and essentially stop the review process completely. SSI awards doubled from 1982 to 1986. DI awards increased 38% over the same time. How many were on SSI for AIDS? AIDS is still a valid disability for SSI. How much of an irresponsible jackass does one have to be to NOT qualify? There's no limit, because there is no responsibility condition. There are no consequences for our stupidity.
The share of high school dropout receiving benefits more than doubled between 1984 and 1999.
I guess Lupus just suddenly started running rampant in this demographic.
Sure, there are some people with disabilities beyond their control, that society has chosen to care for. Fluctuations like these show that a significant portion of the "disabled" are deadbeats who "hurt their back" fifteen years ago and can't possibly go back to their roofing job, although they can still go on their ski boat.
Probably even more common, are the ones that do have some sort of ailment, but they could work. It's just easier to collect that check.
How many of you know somebody that knows somebody that is out of work on disability?
Annual disability expenditures exceed that of welfare, unemployment insurance, and The Earned Income Tax Credit COMBINED. At least one presumably pays into unemployment insurance, but don't get me started on that horseshit, take-money-from-Exador-to-pay-other-people-to-make-brats program.
From 1984 to 2000, the number of non-elderly adults receiving benefits from Disability Insurance and/or Supplemental Security Income programs more than doubled from 3.8 to 7.7 million people.
As of 2002, 5.3% of all adults between 25 and 64 receive either SSI, DI, or both.
In 1980, congress attempted to clamp down on potential fraud in the system, by increasing health reassessments. Over the next three years 40% of the cases reviewed had benefits terminated for no longer meeting the medical standards. In other words, the deadbeat got healthy, but preferred to sit on his ass, or he wasn't disabled to begin with. 40% !!!!
Unfortunately, this crackdown was happening during an economic recession, so the politicians were feeling pressure for being mean. Awwww! Mean old government won't let me be a leech!
The pussies in congress then changed the law in 1984 to expand benefits and essentially stop the review process completely. SSI awards doubled from 1982 to 1986. DI awards increased 38% over the same time. How many were on SSI for AIDS? AIDS is still a valid disability for SSI. How much of an irresponsible jackass does one have to be to NOT qualify? There's no limit, because there is no responsibility condition. There are no consequences for our stupidity.
The share of high school dropout receiving benefits more than doubled between 1984 and 1999.
I guess Lupus just suddenly started running rampant in this demographic.
Sure, there are some people with disabilities beyond their control, that society has chosen to care for. Fluctuations like these show that a significant portion of the "disabled" are deadbeats who "hurt their back" fifteen years ago and can't possibly go back to their roofing job, although they can still go on their ski boat.
Probably even more common, are the ones that do have some sort of ailment, but they could work. It's just easier to collect that check.
posted by Exador at
1:20 PM
16 Comments:
Oh my god! Are you really attempting to argue that people with AIDS need to get off their asses and get back to work?!
I've just got to say that made me laugh so hard I started to cry.
I'd rather be a bleeding heart liberal than have no heart at all, Sir.
By
Aunt B, at 12:08 PM
No, but I'm asking, "How much of a dimwit do you have to be, and expect Exador to pick up the tab?"
Should I pay because some doofus beats himself with a hammer for fun?
At what point is someone responsible for their own stupid decisions?
By
Exador, at 1:32 PM
Well, Christ, Exador. I think right after "What is the meaning of life?" comes "What are my obligations to others and theirs to me?" in terms of the big questions of the ages.
We've been recognizeably human for 10,000 years and haven't managed an answer and yet you're storming around the internet pissed off that you, not even half a century old, don't have a solution.
You don't lack for ambition, do you?
By
Aunt B, at 2:02 PM
OK, let's start with,
If you willfully engage in avoidable, destructive behavior, that you know has a high likelihood of slowly killing you, Exador is not obligated to hand over the money that he worked for in order to prop up your dumb ass.
We can fine tune it later on.
By
Exador, at 2:13 PM
Hey you two..get a grip beyond yourselves....I know 3 people (2 male, 1 female) that are on the Disablilty thingy. Do I think that they are truly disabled? Hell no! Do i think that they would not be a good employee? Hell yes! The "system" has a way to make totally crappy folk be able to get $$$. Hense..disability checks.
My Mother is didabled, but she'd rather lop off her titties than get an SSI check. Love Ya Mom!
By
Chrissykins, at 5:53 PM
I can see both sides of this. My dad got his leg blown off in an industrial accident -- basically jackhammered into a stick of dynamite in a mine (long story) -- and went on back to work in the heavy-duty hard labor end of the construction trades. Yes, he got a payout from the gubbermint (which he had to fight like hell to get) because his employer was at fault for his injury. It paid off our mortgage and he deserved every penny. He was blinded in one eye, partially deafened, and thoroughly mentally fucked up thereafter. But he did go back to work. Sure, he could have really used some time off when he broke his other leg. But he went on back to work. And he should have gotten some medical care when the shrapnel from the blast started working out of his body and the wounds got reinfected years after the initial injury, but he didn't want anyone like Exador to think he was a piker. And he should have gotten some help when he turned crazily abusive and his blood pressure skyrocketed from the stress of being a younger man in a broken-up body, but that stuff was for sissies. So he kept on working and self-medicated with a whole lot of alcohol, as broken-up manual laborers have always done. He died a lot younger than he probably should have. But at least he didn't cost you anything.
Profoundly disabled people can and do go back to work. They should if they can. Some people game the system in a way that is contemptible. BUT by propounding the idea that the vast majority of disability claimants are frauds and doofuses (employers love it when you do that!), you shit all over workers and their families who have legitimate and pressing claims. This disabled-person blaming makes it doubly hard to ask for the care that's actually needed and that has been bargained for in the calculation of taking on the risks of the employment.
It also make it easier for employers to shift the blame for worker injuries back onto the workers themselves rather than on the unsafe workplaces that their bosses maintain and the unsafe work practices that their bosses insist they implement. Honest, I'd be all down with the whole "gotta take responsibility for one's own behavior" thingie if an individual worker had anything like individual control over his or her workplace, but they don't. The "freedom to quit" is a bogus "freedom." What you call willful engagement in stupid behavior is, on many worksites, the difference between staying employed and getting fired.
You want to know who that "termination program" you speak of so approvingly has really hit? My friend (who was born with Cerebral Palsy, cancer survivor, the whole nine yards) who has worked every day of her life until she turned 50. Now her body just can't do it any more. She has to fucking PROVE to the US Government that she's disabled because "well, you used to be able to work, didn't you?" I guess that severe locomotor ataxia no longer meets the medical standards. To add insult to injury, she no longer has the resources to hire a lawyer to fight her termination from SSI, so she's currently trying to figure out what she's going to do to pay share of the rent this month. It's the profoundly disabled from birth (who are far more likely to be unemployed than the general population and thus have far fewer resources to pursue reinstatement) who account for most of the "fat trimming" that you applaud. (Really. Go look it up. Why do you think so many profoundly disabled people are getting kicked onto the state rolls and jerkwater politicians like Bredesen are freaking about crips costing states like TN a buttload of money?)
By
bridgett, at 7:45 AM
Let's not get distracted by Aunt B's lack of linear thinking. (Ha!)
There are two points here:
1) There are a large number of people on disability that are not really disabled. These deadbeats are costing taxpayers much more than other, demonized, programs.
2) Should the taxpayers support someone who is disabled by their own poor decisions.
Of course, someone who is injured in a work accident, with safety procedures in place, is not in the same category as someone who catches AIDS through promiscuous, unprotected sex, or skateboarding.
The problem in resolving 1) is that it costs so much money to determine who should be eligible and who shouldn't.
Yes, beaurocracy sucks, but if you want to be supported off other peoples' work, I say the responsibility is on you to prove that you are eligible of that gift.
By
Exador, at 8:38 AM
Yes, you CAN catch AIDS from skateboarding.
By
Exador, at 9:42 AM
Ok, so Ha! If you are profoundly disabled and lack the resources to demonstrate that you meet the standards (like, say, because you're profoundly disabled and can't work) -- then what are you supposed to do? Under the current system, you go fuck off. The sucking sound I hear is apparently not the same one you're hearing.
And is it really a gift from you to them? Don't workers contribute to Worker's Comp (both state and fed) whether they are injured or not? And thus, when they are injured in the course of their employment (or become too disabled to continue working) should they not be entitled to get their own damn money back?
By
bridgett, at 10:07 AM
The level of DI benefits is based on prior earnings, but for long term disability, nobody has paid anywhere near into them, what they are getting out of them.
SSI benefits do not require any work experience.
So yes, it is a gift.
By
Exador, at 11:11 AM
All I'll say is that you sure are sure of yourself for a man with back problems and gout.
Or will it be okay if you have to go on disability because you never did anything to bring about your back problems or gout?
By
Aunt B, at 5:19 PM
Show me on your paycheck where you contribute to Worker's Comp. There is no Fed WC and State WC, either.
Your employer contributes. You do not. The same goes for Unemployment.
Those who "game" the system create a hardship for those with blown off legs and those born with CP and cancer to recieve gubmint benefits. Just like in grade school, a few rotten fucks spoil it for everyone else.
By
Sarcastro, at 9:35 PM
My back has returned to normal, and I haven't seen any signs of the gout, now that I live a healthier lifestyle. I'm back in ma prime!
By the way, when both of these afflictions were killing me, I still went to work.
By
Exador, at 6:27 AM
I like to imagine the amount of kleenex you and Sarcastro must go through in a sitting of "A Christmas Carol." There's poor old Scrooge, just minding his own business like a good capitalist when all of a sudden a bunch of bleeding heart liberal ghosts show up and demand he give his money to the less fortunate.
Y'all must just watch that and cry thinking it's the story of the tragic downfall of a good man.
By
Aunt B, at 10:58 AM
Amen!
That deadbeat, Cratchit, could've looked for work somewhere else. What? Was Scrooge's the only business in town?
Face it. The lazyass didn't want to take control of his own life. His lack of ambition is what would have doomed Tiny Tim if he didn't have a trio of ephemeral thugs to go and strongarm Scrooge.
By
Exador, at 12:25 PM
I know two guys who have received disability for 10+ years. They're HIV+, but have been fine for years now ever since the drug cocktails came out. Neither works, one travels the world living off his disability money. The most he ever earned was $15K a year, he worked for maybe 4 years. I don't understand why a health reassessment isn't done in these cases.
By
Buford, at 8:26 AM
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