NPR Series on SS Disability
 

I have heard a couple of the NPR shows on Social Security Disability but todays was really eye opening. Helping collect benefits has become big business.



Expanded Definition Of Disability Created Million Dollar Opportunity For Lawyers

http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/

http://www.npr.org/2013/03/26/175396...ty-for-lawyers

Interesting story. Thanks.

Not all growth is good growth. For example lobbying is a growth industry. Good or bad?

http://www.nationalreview.com/campai...rowth-industry

Good if your a lobbyist, bad if your just a common voter.

That's a very old story. There's been some big doofus ambulance chaser in a cowboy hat advertising for decades for this exact thing.

That would be Charles Binder, the The Disability-Industrial Complex King!

"In the past few decades, an entire disability-industrial complex has emerged. It has just one goal: Push more people onto disability. And, sometimes, it seems like the government is outmatched. This is especially true in the legal system.

Daytime TV in many places is full of ads from lawyers who promise to fight the government and win the disability benefits you deserve. There are tons of YouTube videos about getting disability -- one lawyer, one webcam. The standard form is a let's-get-real chat about how to win this thing.

There is one man who takes much of the credit for this industry: Charles Binder. "When we started," Binder told me, "I don't think anybody else was advertising." What's more, most people who applied for disability were denied and never had a hearing. Binder, and the lawyers who followed him, changed that. "I've created some of the problems for the government because so many people appeal," Binder says.


When he started in 1979, Binder represented fewer than 50 clients. Last year, his firm represented 30,000 people. Thirty thousand people who were denied disability appealed with the help of Charles Binder's firm. In one year. Last year, Binder and Binder made $68.7 million in fees for disability cases."

"... and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
'
petition: noun 1. a formally drawn request, often bearing the names of a number of those making the request, that is addressed to a person or group of persons in authority

redress: noun
1. the setting right of what is wrong: redress of abuses.
2. relief from wrong or injury.
3. compensation or satisfaction for a wrong or injury.

griev·ance [ grvənss ] 1.reason for complaint: a cause for complaint or resentment that may or may not be well-founded
2.resentment: bitterness or anger at having received unfair treatment
3.formal objection: a formal complaint made on the basis of something that somebody feels is unfair.

Therefor what the 1st is talking about is a post facto event, e.g., the government has done something that you feel has unfairly affected you and you wish to have that corrected.

It most certainly does not mean that you get invited into Congress or the Whitehouse to write the energy bill (as Prince Dickie did).

But then fluency in the English language is not a requirement for being appointed to the SCOTUS.

merry,

I am with you 100%. Our first amendment law used to draw distinctions between political speech and commercial speech. Now the threshold is so low it's ridiculous. Lying? Legal. Pandering? Legal. Bribery aka Lobbying/Campaign Finance? Legal.

There is no moral structure. The legal threshold for speech is so low that all it requires is talking shit and you are good to go.

Really on topic what do we expect? The bar runs the country!

Pete

The thing is.... The majority of social security disability applications are denied the first time they are submitted as a way to screen out scammers. So, when a legitimate application is denied the first time, and the disabled person has to appeal and begin the process all over, they understandably get frustrated. Then, they are watching TV some night and this shyster comes on telling them he can help them get social security disability. Not realizing that the system will grant them the benefit at the second go at it... They fall hook line and sinker for the TV ad.
I had a regional director from social security tell me that disability benefits take about two years to be granted, and that is for legitimate cases.
In my husband's case, I remember a worker asking me why my husband wasn't actively trying to improve his situation.... Since he was on life support at the time my response was not very friendly.
Took two years, but we did get a retroactive payment when it finally came through.