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View Full Version : 60 Minutes: Disability, USA - The Real Welfare Queens



Cigar
10-07-2013, 11:38 AM
http://i.i.cbsi.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim2/2013/10/06/Disability_Wide_620x350.jpg

There is a Senate hearing scheduled tomorrow on a subject of some importance to millions of Americans, but with the government shutdown it's not clear that the Senate Committee on Government Affairs will be able to pay for a stenographer to record the event. The hearing involves the Federal Disability Insurance Program, which could become the first government benefits program to run out of money. When it began back in the 1950s it was envisioned as a small program to assist people who were unable to work because of illness or injury.


Today, it serves nearly 12 million people -- up 20 percent in the last six years -- and has a budget of $135 billion. That's more than the government spent last year on the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, and the Labor Department combined. It's been called a "secret welfare system" with it's own "disability industrial complex," a system ravaged by waste and fraud. A lot of people want to know what's going on. Especially Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
Tom Coburn: Go read the statute. If there's any job in the economy you can perform, you are not eligible for disability. That's pretty clear. So, where'd all those disabled people come from?


The Social Security Administration, which runs the disability program says the explosive surge is due to aging baby boomers and the lingering effects of a bad economy. But Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Senate Subcommittee for Investigations -- who's also a physician -- says it's more complicated than that. Last year, his staff randomly selected hundreds of disability files and found that 25 percent of them should never have been approved -- another 20 percent, he said, were highly questionable.


Tom Coburn: If all these people are disabled that apply, I want 'em all to get it. And then we need to figure out how we're going to fund it. But my investigation tells me and my common sense tells me that we got a system that's being gamed pretty big right now.


And by a lot of different people exploiting a vulnerable system. Coburn says you need look no further than the commercials of disability lawyers trolling for new clients. Namely, the two thirds of the people who have already applied for disability and been rejected. There's not much to lose, really. It doesn't cost you anything unless you win the appeal and the lawyers collect from the federal government.


Marilyn Zahm: If the American public knew what was going on in our system, half would be outraged and the other half would apply for benefits.


Marilyn Zahm and Randy Frye are two of the country's 1,500 disability judges. They are also the president and vice president of the Association of Administrative Law Judges. They are each expected to read, hear, and decide up to 700 appeals a year to clear a backlog of nearly a million cases. They say disability lawyers have flooded the system with cases that shouldn't be there.



Marilyn Zahm: In 1971, fewer than 20 percent of claimants were represented. Now, over 80 percent of claimants are represented by attorneys or representatives.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57606233/disability-usa/


Yea ... so let get rid of the people finding this failures.

You probably won't see this on Fox News ... :wink:

Mainecoons
10-07-2013, 11:45 AM
I can see the significance of this went right over your head, Cigar.

This is just another big fat liberal program/government management failure.

Wait until everyone figures out they can get subsidies for health insurance without being checked for eligibility.

That is going to make disability abuse look like small change.

SUCKER!

Alyosha
10-07-2013, 11:49 AM
I can see the significance of this went right over your head, Cigar.

This is just another big fat liberal program/government management failure.

Wait until everyone figures out they can get subsidies for health insurance without being checked for eligibility.

That is going to make disability abuse look like small change.

SUCKER!


They don't get it, they think its Republican versus Democrat when it's really the state versus them.

AmazonTania
10-07-2013, 11:53 AM
Why not address the fact that more people are moving from unemployment insurance to disability because it beats taking these shitty part-time jobs the economy is creating?

Because addressing the problem is not as interesting as being a political hack?

Shoot the Goose
10-07-2013, 11:53 AM
Coburn is one Senator who legitimately tries to do the people's business. However, disabiity is as foodstamps is as UI compensation is as Obamacare subsidies ....... it's crack to the Democrats. Once you get someone hooked on it, they will vote liberal for the rest of their parasitic life.

Cigar
10-07-2013, 12:43 PM
I can see the significance of this went right over your head, Cigar.

This is just another big fat liberal program/government management failure.

Wait until everyone figures out they can get subsidies for health insurance without being checked for eligibility.

That is going to make disability abuse look like small change.

SUCKER!

Loser :grin:

Cigar
10-07-2013, 12:48 PM
Coburn is one Senator who legitimately tries to do the people's business. However, disabiity is as foodstamps is as UI compensation is as Obamacare subsidies ....... it's crack to the Democrats. Once you get someone hooked on it, they will vote liberal for the rest of their parasitic life.

Actually I think he's doing the right thing ... Rep or Dem ... if you actually watched the show, you'll see that there were people inside of the organization who blew the whistle on the fraud. That's exactly how it should be, just like any other organization or business, people will try to scam it, but it's the duty of good people to stop it.

If we were a country who were afraid to do anything for fear of fraud ... we'd never get out of bed.

Coburn is don't his Job and I hope he find other Senator's who think the same.

The Xl
10-07-2013, 12:49 PM
I'm all for austerity and ending welfare fraud and whatnot, but it bothers me when that comes first, second, and third in the discussion. What about hitting corporate welfare first, or at least, at the same time? These politicians will never touch that, though.

Cigar
10-07-2013, 12:55 PM
I'm all for austerity and ending welfare fraud and whatnot, but it bothers me when that comes first, second, and third in the discussion. What about hitting corporate welfare first, or at least, at the same time? These politicians will never touch that, though.

Careful, now you talking Donors - Both Republican and Democrat Donors

Did that answer your question?

jillian
10-07-2013, 01:00 PM
I'm all for austerity and ending welfare fraud and whatnot, but it bothers me when that comes first, second, and third in the discussion. What about hitting corporate welfare first, or at least, at the same time? These politicians will never touch that, though.

not just the politicians... but the people who are all for cutting foodstamps to starving kids (which has about a 1% fraud rate, btw) but they never say a word about the fact that the people who voted to cut that assistance (which i think any decent nation should provide when necessary) voted to keep paying themselves farm subsidies.

Codename Section
10-07-2013, 01:07 PM
not just the politicians... but the people who are all for cutting foodstamps to starving kids (which has about a 1% fraud rate, btw) but they never say a word about the fact that the people who voted to cut that assistance (which i think any decent nation should provide when necessary) voted to keep paying themselves farm subsidies.

http://www.examiner.com/article/rand-paul-amendment-to-limit-farm-subsidies-defeated

Rand Paul tried to limit farm subsidies. jillian


The U.S. Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly voted against an amendment to the Farm Bill by Sen. Rand Paul (http://www.examiner.com/topic/rand-paul) (R-KY) that would have placed limits on the amount of subsidies wealthier farmers can receive.

"A good question for the Senate might be, what do Scottie Pippen, Larry Flynt, and David Rockefeller have in common?" Paul said (http://paul.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=553). "The answer would be that besides being very rich, they've all gotten farm subsidies (http://www.examiner.com/topic/farm-subsidies) in the past."

"Nine percent of farmers earn more than $250,000 worth of gross
income," Paul added. "This would limit their payments. Currently nine
percent of farmers are receiving nearly a third of the benefits."

Mainecoons
10-07-2013, 01:09 PM
Not exactly, as usual for you Jillian.

The bulk of food stamp fraud occurs with the complicity of store owners/clerks, usually convenience stores, who give the holders beer and cigarettes at higher than retail prices, and ring the stuff up as allowable food items.

There's a good reason why the convenience store chains are the most vociferous advocates of this program. They sell a lot of alcohol, smokes and other supposedly not allowable crap this way.

Maybe the needed reform is to simply not allow convenience stores to participate in the program at all.

http://www.abc2news.com/dpp/news/local_news/investigations/millions-commit-food-stamp-fraud-every-year

jillian
10-07-2013, 01:09 PM
http://www.examiner.com/article/rand-paul-amendment-to-limit-farm-subsidies-defeated

Rand Paul tried to limit farm subsidies. @jillian (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=719)


he isn't one of the ones who gets them for himself Codename Section

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/these-republicans-who-voted-to-cut-food-stamps-personally-re

but you don't hear the people on the board who whine about WIC etc, complain about these guys

Mainecoons
10-07-2013, 01:11 PM
More BS from Jillian. There's all sorts of posts here from me and others saying that subsidies to these corporate farmers need to be trashed.

The Xl
10-07-2013, 01:59 PM
Careful, now you talking Donors - Both Republican and Democrat Donors

Did that answer your question?

Yeah, they won't bite the hand that feeds. At least you admit it's on Democrats too, so bravo on you for that.

strollingbonez
10-08-2013, 07:17 AM
binder & binder are making millions off the social security disability system....i live in a small county...i would be willing to bet 50% or more are on disability...it is a money flow....lawyers and doctors make a mint off the system...

Mainecoons
10-08-2013, 09:30 AM
Yes, one of the most telling parts of this report is how many more disability claims are involving lawyers who obviously know how to game the system.

Wait until this same thing shows up in the ObamaCare debacle that doesn't require people to prove eligibility to receive subsidies on their policies.

It will make the cost of disability fraud look minor by comparison.

Watch and learn. Well except for our little cadre of partisan hack liberals. They've already shown us that they are incapable of learning from their mistakes.

jillian
10-08-2013, 09:32 AM
Not exactly, as usual for you Jillian.

The bulk of food stamp fraud occurs with the complicity of store owners/clerks, usually convenience stores, who give the holders beer and cigarettes at higher than retail prices, and ring the stuff up as allowable food items.

There's a good reason why the convenience store chains are the most vociferous advocates of this program. They sell a lot of alcohol, smokes and other supposedly not allowable crap this way.

Maybe the needed reform is to simply not allow convenience stores to participate in the program at all.

http://www.abc2news.com/dpp/news/local_news/investigations/millions-commit-food-stamp-fraud-every-year

again... however it occurs, it is only about 1% of total in foodstamps.

so your point?

like i said... get rid of fraud... stop abusing starving children

(and i'd bet there's a lot more fraud in bachmann's farm subsidies and her hubby's pray away the gay scam than there is in the foodstamp program)

Mainecoons
10-08-2013, 09:34 AM
Again, they are unable to detect the switching the convenience stores are doing. It is hidden like that Democrat voter fraud where your shills go around from poll to poll claiming to be someone they are not.

Your one percent is just more of your BS.

jillian
10-08-2013, 10:05 AM
Again, they are unable to detect the switching the convenience stores are doing. It is hidden like that Democrat voter fraud where your shills go around from poll to poll claiming to be someone they are not.

Your one percent is just more of your BS.

no. your lack of comprehension is...

but keep on raging....

Adelaide
10-08-2013, 03:31 PM
If 25-45% of the recipients of disability should not be receiving it, then the program needs to be reviewed (so how these claims are being allowed) and those not actually incapable of working need to be cut-off. It's that simple. And as I've advocated elsewhere on other issues of corruption or abuse of government funds, I think it would be beneficial to have an independent audit by a contracted company agreed upon by representatives. But those 25-45% spoken about in the OP should not automatically mean that everyone on disability is viewed with cynicism and contempt because majority are genuinely disabled.

TheInternet
10-08-2013, 06:18 PM
The regime wants this abuse to happen because it makes the "unemployment" numbers look better. The cat is getting out of the bag though. People are figuring out what's going on here.

Mainecoons
10-08-2013, 07:40 PM
Yes, if you can shrink the work force and/or they get a bunch of low-end part time jobs it looks like unemployment is decreasing because they don't count the people who give up looking and they count a part time, no benefit, job the same they do as a real full time job.

Nice little bit of government sleigh of hand, eh?

Shoot the Goose
10-08-2013, 08:01 PM
The regime wants this abuse to happen because it makes the "unemployment" numbers look better. The cat is getting out of the bag though. People are figuring out what's going on here.

Yes, and it keeps these folks locked in as parasites ... aka "Democrats".

That is not only not an exaggeration, its as certain as the stink on a liberal's ass.

Cigar
10-08-2013, 08:04 PM
:grin: Hearts and Minds :grin:

Shoot the Goose
10-08-2013, 08:18 PM
:grin: Hearts and Minds :grin:

No, lardasses and leeches.