Disability And Surviving On It!

[+Malamute]

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch)—The Social Security disability-insurance program faces the “urgent threat” of reserve depletion in late 2016 unless Congress acts to replenish the fund, trustees of the program said Wednesday in their annual report.

 

Trustees said that Congress should take “prompt corrective action” to shore up the disability fund.

 

In the past, Congress has diverted tax revenue from Social Security’s main retirement program to allocate more revenue to disability benefits, said Kathy Ruffing, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

 

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said he was confident that Congress would come up with a fix.

 

If the disability fund is depleted, it will be able to pay only 81% of benefits.

 

Social Security’s combined funds will be solvent until 2034, one year later than estimated in the prior report.

 

The Medicare hospital-insurance trust fund will be able to continue paying full benefits without any changes in the law through 2030, the same as estimated last year, the trustees said.

 

Social Security and Medicare together accounted for 42% of federal spending in fiscal year 2014.

 

The programs face long-term challenges as millions of baby boomers reach retirement age.

 

Total Medicare costs will grow from about 3.5% of gross domestic product in 2014 to 5.4% of GDP by 2035.

 

Ruffing of the CBPP said the two programs “are not unaffordable or ‘bankrupt’.”

[+Malamute]

It will get resolved.

 

But as I recall, this has to do with republicans stating "social security" money could not be used towards the "Social security disability fund".

 

Also something with having the CBO grade the funds  differently thus causing perceived shortages.  The congress could resolve this in one sentence and not be spending one extra dime. 

 

More hijinks basically.

[trichcycler]

^^  pic book- good thing they gave you ample notice right!

 

seriously, we've all heard this since childhood. congress will fix it with the money left over for the potholes

[Restorium2]

But as I recall, this has to do with republicans stating "social security" money could not be used towards the "Social security disability fund".

 

Yet to qualify you needed to have paid into the Social Security while you were working. You paid in with rules describing how you can collect if you get disabled but R's say, "Wait a minute, that's our money now". " Get the F in line at the church for your troubles".

Edited July 23, 2015 by Restorium2

[Restorium2]

Why not cut Social Security for rich people then? No matter how much they have in the bank they still want to take from the poor working guy and pretend they need it because THEY deserve it, they paid in.  Hypocrites.  

[outsideinthecold]

Social security for seniors isn't the same as social security disability payments, are they?

 

My take will not be popular with the give-me-free-lunch and let the rich people pay for it crowd but so it goes.

 

Why should there be SSDI or even Social Security for that matter?

 

And why should anyone expect anyone else, rich or not, to provide those benefits?

 

And at the heart of these issues is the question, who is responsible? Is it the government?

 

Many think it is the government. But as with Prohibition there is enough demographic and historical data that it should be clear the government is actually making matters worse.

 

You know, Phaq once posed the question if it was okay to take SSDI. Everyone who responded assured him it was. And that would make sense in the micro sense, but what happens if everyone got SSDI? The system would fail, of course.

 

Rather like the national debt. Bernacke admitted years ago in Congressional testimony the U.S. debt trajectory was unsustainable. Eight years later and we are still walking down the same path. Spin it any way you want but the fact remains the debt-to-gdp ration keeps climbing as do the demands on the underlying economy that supports it.

 

Rather like immigration for that matter. If illegal immigration is good, why not simply open the borders and let every one in? America is rich, right? And the rich can pay for it? And only those heartless Republicans with their oppressive capitalism keeps everyone else poor and if only we'd elect Democrats poverty would disappear, urban blight would vanish, and someone would pay to fix my bad teeth, right?

 

Never work. Not enough rich people. Alvin Lee had it right in "I'd Love to Change the World". "Tax the rich, feed the poor, 'til there are no rich, no more."

 

In the end, there is no big government fix for bad parents. And while it is convenient to blame others, in the end it is your own darn fault.

Edited July 23, 2015 by outsideinthecold

[Restorium2]

^^^ Why should there be SSDI or even Social Security for that matter? 

 

Because we freakin' paid into it while we were slaving for an honest dollar. Part of the deal was we get paid back if we meet certain qualifications. It's just that simple. It's a contract. 

[Restorium2]

^^^Social security for seniors isn't the same as social security disability payments, are they?

 

You are collecting because you are old and not disabled, you want to think there's a difference. You want to think somehow you deserve yours more. What a crock. 

[trichcycler]

I wonder if maybe some day the gubment will offer recipients a one time opportunity to square up with the program. Like these silly corps did with their benefit packages. we'll give you a hundred grand but no more checks kind of thing.

 

What good will medicare do anyone if the big pharma continue to raise their prices and exhaust the program. Medication costs could double in one hour, and again tomorrow, in fact its happened. Some medications cost 15k per month. Some costing hundreds a month here are sold by the same manufacturer/distributor in other countries charging a few dollars per month. We've been schmucked and we just don't care enough to stop supporting these monsters, for the cost of doing something maybe.

[Wild Bill]

I've been trying to get some sort of assistance since I came out of the coma two years ago. I was given Medicaid but it would never go through. It turned out that Blue Cross kept my name in their system "just in case I wanted to come back". So when the state checked they said I still had insurance.

 

Just yesterday they discovered that the other problem was that someone had left one letter out of my first name so this typo made me invisible when they searched for my name. I was finally able to get them to pay for my heart medicine.

 

Trying to get SSDI has been another fiasco. First they said I wasn't eligible because my wife gets SSI and she could support me. Then they said I never returned a form that they said they mailed to me but that I never received. Zap was kind enough to put me in touch with an attorney who put me on the right path so hopefully something will happen now.

 

Here's a website from one of the folks who lives under the bridge at 8 & Woodward. I guess everyone has a web presence now. BTW, this gent became homeless because of a marijuana bust.

 

http://spanging.com/

Edited July 23, 2015 by Wild Bill

[Restorium2]

^^^I wonder if maybe some day the gubment will offer recipients a one time opportunity to square up with the program. Like these silly corps did with their benefit packages. we'll give you a hundred grand but no more checks kind of thing.

 

That's as crooked as the day is long. The corps made contracts with people when they retired to pay them. I watched old work-worn people consider how their lives would be after they signed the contract to be paid instead of working. They made hard decisions as to whether they could afford to retire or not. Life and death decisions for their families. Then they got flogged by companies who found ways to go back on the contract. It's as crooked as it gets in America. And people still don't understand it at all. It's terrible. It's the same with Social Security. People want to blame the victims. Its' sick.

[+Malamute]

Social Security Disability INSURANCE.

 

It is an insurance policy that we pay for  run by the government.

 

It isnt about whether the money is there, it is about republicans wanting to raid the fund for corporate subsidies and paying for more military contracts they cannot afford.  They simply need to restructure the fund/pool out of the money they already have and receive daily. It is literally a one sentence fix.

 

Medicare is a totally different program.  Look at your paycheck.

 

Medicaid is a totally different program as well.

 

And for people that are against SS and medicare, you are obviously too young to have seen 4 generations of families living in the same house and old people literally starving and dying daily in the streets, in the woods and in their unheated homes.  No help for nursing home care. So either the family takes care of the dying at home, or o well.  Need drugs to take care of your parents.  O well.

 

I would call you a clueless idiot for suggesting the removal of the program.  A Completely retarded fool with no idea how things "are".

[+Malamute]

I wonder if maybe some day the gubment will offer recipients a one time opportunity to square up with the program. Like these silly corps did with their benefit packages. we'll give you a hundred grand but no more checks kind of thing.

 

What good will medicare do anyone if the big pharma continue to raise their prices and exhaust the program. Medication costs could double in one hour, and again tomorrow, in fact its happened. Some medications cost 15k per month. Some costing hundreds a month here are sold by the same manufacturer/distributor in other countries charging a few dollars per month. We've been schmucked and we just don't care enough to stop supporting these monsters, for the cost of doing something maybe.

 

 

 The republicans and a couple corporate democrats(6 to be exact) blocked the proposal to allow the affordable care act to buy drugs bulk to lower costs by creating contractual obligations to the companies that produce them.  Every single republican and 6 democrats madeit so we as a country could not bargain down the cost of prescriptions. 

 

Blame the right people.  It doesn't have to be this way.

[+Malamute]

Here, read this.  This is from the new republican congress and the first thing they did this session 2015 to manufacture this issue:

 

With a little-noticed proposal, Republicans took aim at Social Security on the very first day of the 114th Congress.

The incoming GOP majority approved late Tuesday a new rule that experts say could provoke an unprecedented crisis that conservatives could use as leverage in upcoming debates over entitlement reform.

 

 

January 6, 2015, 

 

The largely overlooked change puts a new restriction on the routine transfer of tax revenues between the traditional Social Security retirement trust fund and the Social Security disability program. The transfers, known as reallocation, had historically been routine; the liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities said Tuesday that they had been made 11 times. The CBPP added that the disability insurance program "isn't broken," but the program has been strained by demographic trends(Baby Boomer bubble which will recede after around 20 years) that the reallocations are intended to address.

 

The House GOP's rule change would still allow for a reallocation from the retirement fund to shore up the disability fund -- but only if an accompanying proposal "improves the overall financial health of the combined Social Security Trust Funds," per the rule, expected to be passed on Tuesday. While that language is vague, experts say it would likely mean any reallocation would have to be balanced by new revenues or benefit cuts.

 

House Democrats are sounding the alarm. In a memo circulated to their allies Tuesday, Democratic staffers said that that would mean "either new revenues or benefit cuts for current or future beneficiaries." New revenues are highly unlikely to be approved by the deeply tax-averse Republican-led Congress, leaving benefit cuts as the obvious alternative.

 

The Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees estimated last year that the disability insurance program would run short of money to pay all benefits some time in late 2016. Without a new reallocation, disability insurance beneficiaries could face up to 20 percent cuts in their Social Security payments in late 2016 -- a chit that would be of use to Republicans pushing for conservative entitlement reforms.

 

"The rule change would prohibit a simple reallocation! It will require more significant and complex changes to Social Security," Social Security Works, an advocacy group, said in a statement Tuesday. "In other words, the Republican rule will allow Social Security to be held hostage."

 

Policy wonks who follow Social Security saw the GOP rule change as a play for leverage.

 

"Everybody's been talking about entitlement reform. Mr. Boehner and President Obama were pretty close to coming up with some kind of grand bargain, which ultimately fell apart," Tom Hungerford, senior economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, told TPM. "Maybe this could be used as a hostage to try to get back to something like that."

 

For their part, congressional Republicans were fairly transparent about their thinking. Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY), who has been outspoken on the disability program, co-sponsored the rule amendment. The disability program has been a favored target for the GOP; members were warning last month that the program could be vulnerable to fraud.

 

"My intention by doing this is to force us to look for a long term solution for SSDI rather than raiding Social Security to bail out a failing federal program," Reed said in a statement. "Retired taxpayers who have paid into the system for years deserve no less.”

 

Liberal analysts counter, however, that the retirement fund, which pays out $672.1 billion in benefits per year versus $140.1 billion for the disability fund, is more than healthy enough to allow for a reallocation, as has historically been done. CBPP's Kathy Ruffing wrote that, if a transfer was made before the 2016 deadline, both funds would be solvent until 2033.

 

The Republican angle in preventing that move then seems obvious.

 

"By barring the House from approving a 'clean' reallocation in 2016, the rule will strengthen the hand of lawmakers who seek to attach harsh conditions (such as sharp cuts in eligibility or benefit amounts) to such a measure," Ruffing wrote.

[+Malamute]

 

Many think it is the government. But as with Prohibition there is enough demographic and historical data that it should be clear the government is actually making matters worse.

 

 

 

 

 That is a 100% false statement pertaining to these programs. Lies and more lies to justify your ignorant view of this issue.

 

 Like, slap your head stupid.

[Restorium2]

When outside quits trying to defend the R's because he identifies with them then his posts will make sense and have some sort of real meaning to them. I'm looking forward to that day, but I'm not holding my breath. 

[t-pain]

And for people that are against SS and medicare, you are obviously too young to have seen 4 generations of families living in the same house and old people literally starving and dying daily in the streets, in the woods and in their unheated homes.  No help for nursing home care. So either the family takes care of the dying at home, or o well.  Need drugs to take care of your parents.  O well.

are there any documentaries/films on this where you can see how social security fixed a lot of these problems?

[+Malamute]

Heck I dunno.

 

Old age security laws were started in the states. The social security act was a culmination of those initiatives for an organized national system, and to drag the loser states along.  The Wisconsin model/concept(conservative approach) was more closely followed than the more liberal Ohio model.

 

So,you really need to go back to the age of the robber barons to fully understand its basis.  Such as, someday you will have to look back at the waron drugs to understand how marijuana became nationalized.  Both concepts are/were being driven in the same manner.

[trichcycler]

The republicans and a couple corporate democrats(6 to be exact) blocked the proposal to allow the affordable care act to buy drugs bulk to lower costs by creating contractual obligations to the companies that produce them.  Every single republican and 6 democrats madeit so we as a country could not bargain down the cost of prescriptions. 

 

Blame the right people.  It doesn't have to be this way.

I assure you I did not vote for any of those reps who blocked that. who is more ripe for blame than the folks who did? these are the results of voting for the lesser of two evils maybe? In my lifetime I've known nobody who was satisfied with their political choice, and nothing has changed. The insanity is obvious. Who is the "right people" if not those who choose them to make these decisions on their behalf? who could be blamed for allowing this system of lobbying, the guy who accepts the money, the corp who gives it to them, a few hundred policy makers, or maybe the hundreds of millions of people voting for more of the same?

 

will this post get deleted too?

why?

Edited July 23, 2015 by grassmatch

[+Malamute]

Candidates are mostly decided in the primaries. Why do they tend to have the lowest turnouts of all elections?

 

Much can be changed by simply voting in the primaries, public funding of campaigns, and expenditure restrictions for Pacs 6 weeks before an election.

[Wild Bill]

[phaquetoo]

I will drain them dry!  I paid in and now im getting it back because I deserve it and passed thru all the hoops and ladders to get it, took me 8 yrs to start collecting 25 yrs worth of paying into it!

 

Peace

[trichcycler]

hey, I'm a tin foil wearing moron and do not support the  republican party, just sayin

[Highlander]

I'll admit that I didn't read all of the posts on this thread.  But I understand the issue.  My dad was born and raised in Scotland and worked as a bricklayer and stone mason apprentice starting at age 14.  In 1940, when he was was 18, he was drafted into the British Army. He filed for conscientious objector status and was denied.  His simple position was that he didn't want to kill people.  He appealed and got shot down again.  He was sentenced to 9 months of hard labor, which he spent designing and building masonry fortifications for fuel storage depots at various places in the British Isles. 

 

After the war, he moved to Canada and launched a successful construction company.  He lived and worked in Canada for about 20 years before moving to LA.  After a few years of success in LA, he moved to Flint, Michigan in 1967.  After he moved to Flint, he worked for another 25 years or so...sometimes taking contracts in other states and leaving home for six moths at a time to do the work.  He busted his azz in three countries over a period of about 50 years and provided good jobs to a lot of people everywhere he went. 

 

Finally, as an old man, he had to quit work at about age 70.  He was able to collect about $640/month in US social security and about $100 per month each from Canada and Britain.  In about 1994, he was about $40/month over the limit for food stamps and medicare.  He discussed this with the British gov, and they told him that the best course of action would be for the Brits to cut his old age pension by $40/month so he could qualify for assistance in the US.  They also told him that if he chose to voluntarily cut his pension, the British government would hold that $40/month in abeyance until he might need/want it and they would pay it in a lump sum later.

 

So here's a guy who worked 50+ years and paid into the system and got just a little bit back - merely a fraction of what he paid in.

 

I am fortunate that, despite some health issues, I've been able to work my whole adult life.  I've never had any government assistance.  I know that a good portion of my payroll tax goes to those less fortunate.  I'm OK with that.  I have no problem knowing that a portion of my earnings go to people who can't work anymore. 

 

You hear the anecdotal stories of welfare queens and people "living off the system."  I'm sure that these situations occur, but the people I know who can't work anymore and get a paltry government check monthly would far rather work for a living if they could. 

[Wild Bill]

The government pays roughly $60 billion for social welfare programs. It pays over $92 billion for corporate welfare.

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/taxanalysts/2014/03/14/where-is-the-outrage-over-corporate-welfare/

 

http://www.cheatsheet.com/business/high-on-the-hog-the-top-8-corporate-welfare-recipients.html/?a=viewall