In this video Marc Whitehead, a board certified Social Security Disability Attorney, discusses why what 60 Minutes discussed about the Social Security Disability Program was wrong. Recently there have been a number of news reports in the major new publications criticizing the Social Security Disability insurance system. Now the News program 60 Minutes has gotten in on the act. This major news program was able to produce a story about the SSD Program without interviewing a single disabled person or disability advocate. Their chief source was Senator Tom Coburn an Oklahoma Republican with a documented hostility to SSD system. 60 Minutes and Senator Coburn displayed a rank ignorance about the disability program, how it works, who the beneficiaries are, and why it has grown. Why 60 minutes failed to interview any number of experts to present an educated expert view of the program is unknown. They tried to correlate the rising unemployment rate with the rising rate of disability claims and come to the erroneous conclusion that people are using the SSD insurance system instead of looking for work. The reality is that many elderly workers have received special accommodations from their employer that allows them to work, with the disabilities, because they have bee loyal, hard working employees for decades. But, when the economy turns down these workers are the first to be laid off and they are not capable of working in a competitive job market. The 60 Minutes report makes it seem as if winning a disability claims is easy, this is far from the truth. American with disabilities already face growing challenges in their efforts to gain disability benefits. Filing a claim can prove to be a daunting and complex bureaucracy that can sometimes take months and even years to navigate. Meeting standards is tougher, for example alcoholism and drug abuse are disqualified. Obesity, Pain and Diabetes are eliminated as sole criteria and mental illness and HIV standards are even tougher. Blaming the disabled for Americas economic woes is unfair. There are strains on the SS system that should not be blamed on disabled Americans who need support. The SSD Insurance program provides income to non-elderly adults, most of whom have worked in the past and contributed to the fund. But are determined unable to work now because of a medical condition that are expected to last at least a year or to result in death. Many factors have caused the increase in the number of people receiving SSDI benefits
- The aging baby boomers
- Increase in the number of working women
- Increases in life expectancy
- More people surviving what was once fatal diseases
Stories like this 60 Minutes piece perpetuate the false imagine of disability recipients as undeserving, poor, slackers and frauds. That will make it easier for the wealthy law makers, like Coburn, to hack away at the program in it’s time of need. It is not fair to attempt to balance our Federal budget on the backs of the disabled. We all have a stake in seeing deserving people with disabilities get the benefits that they need and have earned.
