Because You are Still Blind According to Our Rules
October 4th, 2009I’ve written before about problems with the US Social Security system. Today, I’ll write about another one of my annoyances: The need to disprove that someone has received a divine healing for a lifelong condition.
For those who don’t know how the US Social Security system works, anyone who is disabled, no matter what the disability, has to periodically prove to Social Security that they are still disabled. While this makes sense for some disabilities (which might only last a few years), there is an obvious lack of common sense applied to people with conditions that only change under miraculous circumstances.
Truly, does it make any sense whatsoever to pay a doctor to say “Yep, he’s still autistic?” Or “Yep, she’s still paralyzed?” Sure, occasionally someone may have a disability – even in these categories – where the impact of the disability lessens over time, enough so that the person can enter into the workplace and no longer needs disability payments (of course Social Security is notified when people make regular wages, so they would know if they actually did enter the workplace). And sometimes people may even claim disability payments they are not entitled to, after being a rare exception and having a “lifelong” condition change into a condition which is no longer considered a disability – and, sure, we don’t want our tax dollars going to fraud. But I’d rather lose $10 to fraud than $100 to waste – and in this case the waste far exceeds the potential fraud.
As an example of this, I know someone who recently received a letter from Social Security informing them that they will still receive disability payments. This person was told, “You are still blind according to our rules.” It seems everyone except Social Security knew that this lifelong condition (I’m not saying all blindness is lifelong, but this person’s condition not only is lifelong, but is obviously lifelong to any doctor that examined this person) was unlikely to be cured through divine intervention. Yet Social Security spent tax dollars – money that could be spent to actually help people live and ensure that Social Security can remain financially viable into the future – to determine that this faith healing hasn’t occurred. I’m outraged, as a taxpayer. I have no problem with my taxes providing disability payments, medical care, or other services provided to people who need it. But I have a huge problem when the inability to have flexibility in a system (and recognize that most lifelong conditions are, in fact, lifelong) when this simply wastes money. My friend, who, as Social Security told them, is still blind, went to medical professionals – at government expense – for no reason other than to confirm that they are still blind!
The absurdity doesn’t stop there. This person missed an appointment initially to see the government medical specialists, because the only notification provided this person was provided on a printed letter. The cynic inside Joel says, “Well, that should be proof that the person couldn’t see!” While this person did finaly manage to find out about an apointment and did manage to have shown that the lifelong condition is still affecting this person, it took three more printed letters. At no point did anyone think that a person who is blind probably should not be sent printed letters, but perhaps should be telephoned, emailed, sent a braille letter, or even visited in-person. After all, we can’t have any flexibility in the system. We send letters to everyone!
Of course the final absurdity was that the letter confirming to this person that they are still blind according to Social Security’s rules was also a printed letter.
I also note that many people I know who are simply in their 40s and older would have trouble reading the print size on the letters that were sent. But I suppose Social Security doesn’t need to worry about communicating with people who have trouble reading with small print – they must be a very small part of Social Security’s client base, after all!
Wait a minute, something familiar there, can’t quite put my finger on it… Oh yeah, that sounds just like the way they ran the war in Vietnam! (And the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and…) Bureaucracy run amuck.
I’m not familiar with US law. Would sending a blind person a printed letter and only printed letters be disallowed under the ADA?
Rechecking disability status every so often sounds pretty normal, though, unfortunately.
In some countries blindness is paid a separate payment under the relevant pension, and it is a higher payment.
The comments are also in small print, but at least there is technology to make them bigger. Is it about the same size as Social Security?
Anemone, here in Quebec (province of Canada), we are not required to be evaluated every so often for lifelong disability; that’s a good thing because we have a shortage of doctors.
If you have a child with serious expensive long-term medical problems, one can apply for a deeming waiver. This provides medical benefits for the child, supposedly without the family having to qualify for medicaid. However, you have to first prove that your child does not qualify for social security. Now, why would I go through the long difficult process of trying to prove that my child has a long term serious illness or condition that requires more medical care than I can afford if that child can get social security? And why can’t they just check to see that the child is not GETTING social security and then go ahead with the deeming waiver application? Why does a parent with a sick child that they are trying to care for have to go FIRST to the social security office and apply for social security for their child just to prove they can’t get it, and then go to the Welfare office which handles deeming waivers and apply there with doctors letters and proof of diagnosis, copies of bills, proof of income, and proof of no social security?
I think in the Netherlands legislation was changed so that people whose disability is assessed as lifelong, will not be re-evaluated every so often. People whose disability is expected to be temporary, will however be followed more strictly than they used to, I think. Formerly, everyone was obligated to prove they’re still disabled every five years. I thought that people are still re-assessed one time five years after they first get on disability, but in that case I should’ve received a notice somewhere around my 23rd birthday last June. Oh wait, they send printed letters… Oh well, in my case I have someone read my mail, and if there were even a proposition in ADA about print letters to the blind, I’m pretty sure the NFB (one of the major blind organizations in the US) would fight it, since according to them, everyone 1. scans their own mail with OCR (no matter how hard that is) or 2. has friends or hires readers (at whose expense?) to read their mail.
As a side note, we do have a stupid bureaucracy aroudn SSI, in tha tyou will get re-assessed everytime the law changes, even if you were assessed six months before and everyone already knew about the upcoming changes. I was first assessed for disability in like April, 2004, and then assessed again in maybe October, because the law had changed (which everyone had known since 2003) and everyone had to be re-assessed. I might need to be re-assessed sometime in 2010, too, since there’s another law change, but I heard that people currently on my type of benefit (disability payments for those disabled from childhood), can choose whether they want to fall under the new law (“more help finding a job” is the catchy phrase for what are really more strict regulations).
I’m on SSI right now and they won’t let me have more than $450 a month because I live with my boyfriend. He “supports” me, therefore they won’t give me more money. I figured that once I moved out of my parents’ house, I’d be covered but no, living with him is the same as living with my parents. I still can’t get over it.
Of course, I wish that someone would’ve given me a job, but I’ve been looking for about six years and I doubt anyone’s going to suddenly start caring about my volunteer work and there’s just not much I can do. I’ve been in and out of “services” that were supposed to help me get jobs but, nope. Never happened. I got mediocre grades in high school and wasn’t eager to dive headfirst into college. I was forced to drain my savings account, so I couldn’t even continue to take community college classes.
I really wished my mom hadn’t decided this was the best route for me to go. I didn’t have much say in any of it, and now I’m screwed.
Granted, I don’t blame my mom for all of this. It’s not like that. I’m just screwed from all directions and still trying to figure out what to do.
“Of course the final absurdity was that the letter confirming to this person that they are still blind according to Social Security’s rules was also a printed letter.”
-headdesk-
I once received a letter from county social services about money that I owed, repayment options, rights to an appeal, etc. Then at the end it said that I didn’t know any money. All this paperwork is sent to anyone who might have had to repay money if they had been EVALUATED for a possible loan.
I believe that Social Security has just been ordered to either send out letters in Braille or provide disks containing the information to blind recipients. Yes, they had to be ordered.
Yep, that just got through – I saw it a day or two after I made this post. It’s good to see that at least the courts have some sense. Bad to see it took 5 *years* of legal battle.
I am so very glad of one thing: the caseworker assigned to my brother’s SSI? The mother of one of my high school friends. The conversation at the last re-certification was a quick visit to my mother and “Is Brother still Autistic?” “Yep” “Alright then.” and a few paper signings. I wish others were so lucky.