Financial struggles in retirement - people's own fault or not? (community, relative)

[Wisteria]

Livecontent, I'm sorry, but I do not believe I made that statement -- perhaps someone else made it. I will have to go and look for that, but I do not think that I stated that.

However, when I saw your statement "...it appears that few claims are awarded based on mental illness..." I knew that your statement is incorrect. Most awards are in the category of mental illness.

I do believe that many ARE awarded on mental illness, however, the mental illness diagnosis is often skewed, and people (I actually do know real people who admit to fraud) do say what is expected of them to receive benefits. If you could DM me about that post, I would appreciate it, because I know that a large majority are granted due to mental illness which is precisely why I mentioned the DMS IV/V.

If, indeed, I stated that, then it was a typo. But I don't think I would have said that. I'm too tired to go through all the posts right now, though.

P.S. I am too exhausted to go into all the details, legal and otherwise. I realize that there are two sides to the story, and although some people legitimately get benefits, there is another large proportion that knows how to work the system. I can't believe that someone with your smarts would deny that. I will repeat -- I do not deny those who sincerely deserve it -- but I will speak up about those whom I know are intentionally defrauding the system -- it is the only way to "fix" it.

[brightdoglover]

I've worked in psychiatric hospitals for many years and have seen people get onto SSDI at early ages and just stay there, while people with real physical problems can't get on or have to fight to get on. The only thing I could think of is that people hooked up to the mental health system have a social worker or other advocate who can walk them through.
When the economy was booming, you could argue that plenty of those people could work and were choosing not to. Now, that's not true, and likely people couldn't get the health insurance and other benefits of being on SSDI.
Still, it rags me to see people in the hospital who seem quite organized enough to do all the things they want to. I try to remember, the huge corporate welfare and DOD feeding troughs are a lot more abusive (or more expensive) and it's easier to look at individual people who likely don't "deserve" welfare and forget about the ruinous corporate welfare.

A co-worker of mine married a woman who was working full-time. Her mother died and she is supposedly PTSD from this or something. She seems to lead a pleasant life, reading, watching TV, waiting on her husband, playing with the cat. (She has also become, or always was, morbidly obese). He keeps saying, "I have a disabled wife," and I, after meeting her, had trouble seeing what her disability was. He says "She has panic attacks in job interviews." Well, who doesn't... In another economy, she should be working. In this one, she likely wouldn't get anything anyway.
Again, I try to remember the big welfare scams.

[mathjak107]

bumper sticker says it all

KEEP WORKING:MILLIONS ON WEFARE AND DISABILITY DEPEND ON YOU!

[lenora]

LiveContent,

I suppose I should explain that almost every claimant has at least 2 impairments and each decision is coded with 2 impairments. Little attention is paid to the coding and the decision writers can either go back and correct the codes or leave them as be. As it had no effect on the outcome of the claim, the codes were usually left as is. Think "garbage in, garbage out." Based on your link, I'd have to guess that the statisticians used the 1st code listed and ignored the second. "Step 5" awards are almost always because of multiple impairments. I suppose a more accurate accounting would include the percentage of claims that "met or equaled" a 12.00 listing versus those that met or equaled another listing. And then look at percentage of claims that were awarded based on listing severity versus combination of multiple impairments that prevented the claimant from engaging in substantial gainful activity. Here is another link to a recent audit conducted at the hearing level. I'm betting the OIG also (improperly) used one
of two codes in its analysis.

http://www.ssa.gov/oig/ADOBEPDF/A-07-09-19083.pdf (broken link)

[livecontent]

Originally Posted by lenora

LiveContent,

I suppose I should explain that almost every claimant has at least 2 impairments and each decision is coded with 2 impairments. Little attention is paid to the coding and the decision writers can either go back and correct the codes or leave them as be. As it had no effect on the outcome of the claim, the codes were usually left as is. Think "garbage in, garbage out." Based on your link, I'd have to guess that the statisticians used the 1st code listed and ignored the second. "Step 5" awards are almost always because of multiple impairments. I suppose a more accurate accounting would include the percentage of claims that "met or equaled" a 12.00 listing versus those that met or equaled another listing. And then look at percentage of claims that were awarded based on listing severity versus combination of multiple impairments that prevented the claimant from engaging in substantial gainful activity. Here is another link to a recent audit conducted at the hearing level. I'm betting the OIG also (improperly) used one
of two codes in its analysis.

http://www.ssa.gov/oig/ADOBEPDF/A-07-09-19083.pdf (broken link)

Thank You for your response. I have to read this post multiple times to understand what you are saying because I am not familiar with all the terms, you are using. However, I have all the time to look up the terms and figure it out, between many naps.

I am not as intelligent as I want to portray; and I am not at your professional level in this field. What I know, I have to spend hours to learn, and try to understand because it was important for me to be my own advocate.

The link you attached is extremely interesting to me. It will take me time to absorb the information. My award for disability came from the Administrative Judge. Now, my problems are much more severe; I am 15 years older and over 60, that my disability would not be questioned.

Livecontent

[oldcoder]

We all endure many things, and we all react to those things differently.

That is true, we react very differently, but in one respect we are the same. When fighting to survive, we pull ourselves together somehow. People brought up with a more or less socialist belief system are more likely, it seems to me, to consider getting government help. If you have a spouse, or parents, to lean on, you might give in to the idea of being disabled. Or if you consider the government a sort of parent.

There are many borderline cases, I am sure, where it's very hard to know if the person could work or not. And it depends on the type of work. A person who can't walk very well might get SSI because they had a physically demanding job. But they could have changed careers instead.

And there are people whose disability is caused at least partly by lifestyle, but they would rather get SSI than improve their lifestyle. I know several examples of that. And since lifestyle diseases are so common in America now, they probably account for a large number of SSI claims.

[livecontent]

Originally Posted by oldcoder

That is true, we react very differently, but in one respect we are the same. When fighting to survive, we pull ourselves together somehow. People brought up with a more or less socialist belief system are more likely, it seems to me, to consider getting government help. If you have a spouse, or parents, to lean on, you might give in to the idea of being disabled. Or if you consider the government a sort of parent.

There are many borderline cases, I am sure, where it's very hard to know if the person could work or not. And it depends on the type of work. A person who can't walk very well might get SSI because they had a physically demanding job. But they could have changed careers instead.

And there are people whose disability is caused at least partly by lifestyle, but they would rather get SSI than improve their lifestyle. I know several examples of that. And since lifestyle diseases are so common in America now, they probably account for a large number of SSI claims.

I would like to comment to your post. First, I would like to clarify acronyms. SSI is Supplemental Security Income. SSDI is Social Security Disability Income and SSRI is Social Security Retirement Income. Just to make it clear and easy to understand because the confusion has caused people not to understand.

Disability under SSDI is always based on age, education, experience and the ability of the person to adapt to a new work environment. Yes, changing careers is possible to be able to work but there are many situations where the person is too old, lacks the education; cannot be retrained and cannot function in another career because of the disability prevents one from doing any job in the market.

We seem to target obesity as a lifestyle issue which causes disability. The question is like the "chicken and the egg"; does the disability cause the obesity or does the obesity cause the disability.

For example, one can be impaired for many years with osteoarthritis and because of lack and pain of movement, the person gains weight--the osteoarthritis gets work--the person develops obesity--the osteoarthritis gets much worse and so on, and so on.

A person can have a hidden disease like sleep apnea (a disease where you constantly sleep is interrupted by an obstruction which cause you to gasp for breath). He is tired; his activities are less; he gains weight; he develops sleep apnea; he gets obese and the sleep apnea gets worse.

Now, we have the issue where the failure to exercise caused the cardiac system to be weaken and susceptible to disease. So, the lifestyle is the cause of the disease and possible subsequent disability. Or is it? Is it not possible that person has some other mental or physical issues that predispose him to fatigue and he does not exercise?

Obesity is a very complex issue and is not always cause by the person being lazy, stupid or diet is not proper.

Interesting if you look at data for the different states, that I posted for SSDI, you will see some interesting issues. The state with the highest percentage of people receiving disability for mental disorders is Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Minnesota, DC, Connecticut.

These are all states with people who have higher education and that liberal social view that you alluded. Perhaps these people have better higher paid jobs and consequently have higher stress; or perhaps they are pampered, spoiled and whine about every problem; or mental problems are taken more seriously in these states and disability is approved. Keep in mind that disability is first reviewed and approved by the individual state boards. Maybe there are more woman living in these states and woman have a higher percentage of disability for mental illness.

Does that mean, the lifestyle choice of being liberal, going to college and living in Massachusetts makes you prone to a disability of mental illness. So if we get rid of liberals, end colleges and do away with Massachusetts, we will have less mental illness. Perhaps we should just get rid of woman

Be careful where you go with lifestyle choices. If we want a good healthy lifestyle for all; perhaps we need to sterilize the stupid, the poor, the colored so they do not pass their unhealthy lifestyles to their children. All children should be raised by the State to give them equal opportunities and equal experiences. We should use Eugenics to develop in our country a pristine Aryan Race that are healthier and smarter. If we can breed animals to be fat or lean; we can easily breed people to be thin and get rid of the fatties. Less people will be ill; less people will get physical and mental illnesses; there will be less crime and there will be no disabled to support because the few who survive our selection process; the diseased and the sick, we will euthanize.

[oldcoder]

If we want a good healthy lifestyle for all; perhaps we need to sterilize the stupid, the poor, the colored so they do not pass their unhealthy lifestyles to their children. All children should be raised by the State to give them equal opportunities and equal experiences. We should use Eugenics to develop in our country a pristine Aryan Race that are healthier and smarter. If we can breed animals to be fat or lean; we can easily breed people to be thin and get rid of the fatties. Less people will be ill; less people will get physical and mental illnesses; there will be less crime and there will be no disabled to support because the few who survive our selection process; the diseased and the sick, we will euthanize.

Yes anything can be taken to an insane extreme. But it is a fact that the American lifestyle is generally very unhealthy, and the expense to taxpayers is enormous. And we all pay more for health insurance because of lifestyle diseases.

No, you can't force anyone to have a healthy lifestyle. However when deciding who gets SSDI, it would be possible to consider trying to educate the patient, instead of automatically declaring them disabled. I know too many people who are suffering terribly and needlessly because there is not enough lifestyle education. Maybe there is some now, but for many Americans it's too late.

We would all be better off if Americans were encouraged -- not forced, encouraged -- to be more responsible. Yes there are people with severe mental or physical disorders they did nothing to cause and that cannot be cured. As a society we should have compassion and make sure they are taken care of. But we should not go too far one way or the other.

If you are a parent you know that children can't always get their way. Well we adults are not so different from children.

[beergy]

Hi,I am new.I am a disabled veteran 100% PTSD who also gets SSD,I am 39 years old and have not worked since 2003.No one can tell I am mentaly disabled and when I tell people I am drawing disability at this age many have said to me "You look fine" , "Nothing wrong with you" they do not know what they are taiking about and it hurts me,so now I just say I am retired,because people are so judgemental and jealous especialy when I tell them how much I recieve per month for life.

[ConeyIsBabe]

[quote=oldcoder;15612133] "Yes anything can be taken to an insane extreme. But it is a fact that the American lifestyle is generally very unhealthy, and the expense to taxpayers is enormous. And we all pay more for health insurance because of lifestyle diseases."


I AGREE ~~ the American lifestyle is generally very unhealthy, and the expense to taxpayers is enormous. And we all pay more for health insurance because of lifestyle diseases. (Tried to rep you again but can't )

And I hear this so often...... "Why didn't they report this ?" ( information about medical issues, financial advice, healthy eating lifestyle, etc. etc. etc.) and I think to myself ~ "they" is US ~ it's up to us, ourselves to educate us, ourselves and take responsibility for not doing so.