The Issue: Whether law firms are gaming Social Security Disability Insurance rules for profit.
***
Kyle Smith has only grazed the surface of Social Security Disabilty Insurance and Supplemental Security Income (“The Welfare Cowboys,” PostScript, April 7).
The system was designed to fail. I can say this with confidence because for 30 years, I was a disability analyst working for New York state.
Although it’s a federal program, the Social Security Administration built in a level of deniability by allowing the states to designate an agency that adjudicates the claims.
Claimants file at a local office, which then relays the applications to the designated state agency. The standards in SSA’s Listing of Impairments are exceptionally high, so younger, better educated claimants are guaranteed denials at the initial and reconsideration levels. That’s where advocates strike gold.
Around the turn of the century, the program took an ominous turn, placing its emphasis on allegations, claimant feelings and “expert” opinion.
It will be interesting to watch those in Baltimore (SSA headquarters) and Washington attempt to explain the coming catastrophe. It’s Dwight Eisenhower’s fault, because he signed SSDI into law in 1956.
Mark Nahmias
San Tan Valley, Ariz.
Smith got uptight about some poor slobs getting disability.
Legitimate or not, I thinks it’s great. Particularly when you see how the Walton family, founders of Walmart, with a reported $50 billion fortune, pay their associates very little, along with meager or no health benefits at all. They say they can’t afford it.
What companies like this do is to post the addresses and phone numbers of the local government-assistance offices and send their employees to get Medicaid and disability.
Talk about mooching off the taxpayer. This is common practice of many chain retail stores.
Mark Pinsker
Cherry Hill, NJ
I practiced law for 20 years, so I am not surprised at the shenanigans.
Anytime you have a worthwhile government social program, you’ll see a cottage industry of parasites pop up to game the system.
They shroud themselves in a guise of do-gooders seeking justice for the downtrodden, while stuffing their pockets in the process.
Many clients are nothing but pawns in the game.
The lawyers walk away filthy rich, while the SSDI recipient is trapped in a life of financial mediocrity, if not abject poverty.
As part of this process, the taxpayer is mugged. This is a typical example of how an organized special-interest group can subvert the interests of the general public, which does not have an interested and organized advocate.
If it is true that a lawyer is directing staff to submit to the government information that is “not harmful” to the client, it appears that he is purposely directing his staff to omit information that is relevant to the adjudicative decision-making process.
Fraud can be committed by commission and omission.
Michael Rychel
Kearny, NJ
As a former career employee of Social Security’s Office of Hearings and Appeals (now ODAR), I can tell you that this disability charade has been going on, and getting worse, for decades.
While The Post may be patting itself on the back for the story, it could have written this 20 years ago. I guess it’s better to get to the dance late than not at all.
Lawyers will do anything to get benefits for their clients.
Who’s checking? Nobody who will do anything about it. There are lawyers on all sides.
Billy Rozakis
Herndon, Va.