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Tens of thousands are dying on the disability wait list (www.motherjones.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/news

35 comments fedilink hide all child comments

In the twelve-month stretch from October 2022 through September 2023, 30,000 people died while waiting for federal disability determinations, according to Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley. Martha asked Harris what she would do as president for people, like herself, who are waiting for disability decisions while in desperate need of health insurance.

Delays in those decisions, driven in part by understaffing and a Covid-related rise in disability rates, have driven the typical wait time from four months in 2019 to seven months today, often coupled with the need to appeal an initial rejection, which can take years. The processing times represent a mounting crisis for the more than 1 million Americans who apply for disability in a given year.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I managed to get on SSDI after fucking years, before Covid, and guess what, I still can't afford anything beyond roach motel / slum lord housing (which of course have bad water and mold and dust, and because these places don't have a 3x rent as income requirement)...

..., and I can't actually access medical care, as I can't afford a car and public transit is basically non existent, and even if I could, it would take me a year of referrals and tens of thousands of dollars to access the PT care I need.

Its literally 100x easier and less expensive for me to just learn the PT I need to do from reading studies and watching youtube videos from actually qualified people.

If you get on SSDI, if you make more than about 1500 dollars a month, for 9 consecutive months, then your SSDI benefits go away, poof, all gone, until you have 0 income for another 9 months.

During which time you will be evicted and likely die on the streets as a disabled homeless person.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Yet, somehow, (from what I understand, anyway) you're allowed to make money from investments and other type of "non-worked" income while on SSDI. I'm pretty damn sure that $1500 limit is only for worked income. It's almost like it's tailor-made for rich people to be able to function on it (because they already had investments when they became disabled) and to just screw the living hell out of everyone else.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Yep!

https://www.disabilitysecrets.com/resources/social-security-disability/ssdi/income-limits-ssdi-benefits

No SSDI Limits on Unearned Income and Assets

A person collecting SSDI can have any amount of assets and any amount of income from investments, interest, or a spouse's income. These are all types of "unearned income." You (and your spouse, if you're married) can have an unlimited amount of unearned income. Unearned income includes:
interest income
dividends
rent from property you don't actively manage
income that your spouse earns
pensions
state disability payments
unemployment benefits, and
cash or gifts from friends and relatives.
Any type of gift, even an expensive gift, doesn't affect SSDI benefits at all. You don't have to report gifts to the SSA as income.

This is the exact and precise opposite of how you'd think it would work if you actually wanted to use policies to nudge the disabled toward finding some gainful employment but always have a backstop in case issues flair up again, and not give out benefits to those who don't actually need them.

But no one cares.