December 17, 2007 Disabled Need Help Now, Not Later To the Editor: "Disability Cases Last Far Longer as Backlog Rises" (front page, Dec. 10): The failure of this administration to help disabled people receive the benefits to which they are entitled is shocking. In recent years we have seen a sharp increase in death rates for the disabled. Similar findings regarding the mentally ill also cause concern. Last year, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention newsletter reported a life expectancy for people disabled by mental illness of only 53 years. At a time when the Bush administration has claimed its respect and support for life, how can it justify its failure to help the disabled? It has been said that the measure of a society is how it treats and cares for its disabled, its aged and its children. What is the message for the public if the administration fails to do what is necessary for the disabled? Martin Gittelman To the Editor: Another devastating problem for the disabled is that there is a two-year waiting period for people on Social Security disability to become eligible for federal Medicare. People stranded in the disability appeal process, who cannot work, must either scrape by to purchase expensive private health insurance, drain precious family resources or do without critical health care. And then, if their appeals are finally granted, most must still wait two full years for Medicare. This is yet another example of the country’s fractured health care financing system, and shows how we, through our federal government, must do better to ensure basic high-quality health care assistance to all Americans, especially in times of need. Medicare works. It should be available to people with disabilities without a waiting period and should be expanded to cover the uninsured. Ted J. Bliman To the Editor: As a legal services lawyer, I appreciated your article about the long waiting time for disability hearings. It did not mention, however, that many of the disabled people in this situation are single mothers who have to rely on welfare benefits to survive during the years that they wait for a hearing. The vast majority of my clients on welfare have been single women with serious disabilities who are trying to take care of their children with no resources while awaiting federal disability benefits. It is important for readers to realize this when considering a position to take in the continuing debate over welfare reform. Michelle Lerner To the Editor: The New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance is being devastated by a brain drain. I recently retired after 34 years at the office, where I was a senior analyst. I have seen that the most experienced, best educated and highly trained analysts are departing in record numbers. Analysts are leaving out of frustration that their salaries are not comparable to those paid at the Social Security Administration, including compensation for the higher cost of living when working in New York City. The backlog in disability cases will not be resolved until we are able to retain the best-trained analysts. This takes a commitment to financing government. Jeffrey Kassel To the Editor: Social Security can reduce the growing backlog of disability appeals by changing its quality assurance program. As a legal services lawyer, I often represent clearly disabled clients before administrative judges because of Social Security claims that should never have been denied in the first place. As you point out, two-thirds of such appeals are won. Why are so many strong cases denied at the application level? The Social Security Administration’s quality assurance is a main culprit. It examines disability approvals for error, but not disability denials. Consequently, it’s safer to deny a case with a tinge of gray than risk being sanctioned. These denied cases then end up in the long waiting line for review by a judge. By imposing oversight and consequences for erroneous denials at the application level, the hearing backlog, and the number of disabled workers living in poverty, could be significantly reduced. Johnson Tyler The writer is director of the South Brooklyn Legal Services unit for Social Security and disability cases. To the Editor: My experience with Social Security, in attempting to represent my mother, has convinced me that this bureaucracy was designed by people who studied Kafka’s novels. And that’s no accident. One of their goals is to save money by denying claims. But the more important goal clearly is to weaken public support for the program so that it can be killed or emasculated in the future — since it is now politically sacred. Ironically, my mother campaigned for a Social Security system in the 1920s, when it was a radical idea. Apparently, some people still think it is too radical. David Levner
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