Never fantasized about this

Here is what I did this weekend: I helped my seventy-year-old husband apply for social security. 

It made me wonder, before computers, how did they discourage the elderly from applying for social security? Did they put the social security offices on the 10th floor and disable the elevators? Because the computer application is hard, and I work with computers all day.

Granted, on the first attempt we started the application under a screen banner that said the system would be shutting down for maintenance in one hour.  It was easier the next day, but then they said our second factor for our two-factor authentication wasn't working, and perhaps we could get a physical authentication key to plug in to our com-pu-ter, and finally it said, "Ugh! Codgers! Here, we'll send you a letter in the mail." So now we wait.

I have to tell you, when I was a young dewy bride I did not dream of this day.

Comments

[KC]

I occasionally wonder what the net savings in administrative costs vs. direct costs to the program would be if they made things *actually work* for SSDI, given [for instance] the study indicating that all the potential welfare fraud cases they found would have cost less to just pay than the total costs of the measures they were taking to prevent welfare fraud. But since Medicare as well as a previous-payments-into-the-system based monthly payout come with SSDI, presumably the break-even-by-making-disabled-people-give-up point is a lot farther along than welfare. But it's *nuts*.

[theQueen]

KC - I think Mom said (when she worked for the old "welfare" department) that 9% of welfare is welfare fraud, and it wasn't worth policing, as you say.
Incidentally, Gary isn't applying for anything but the SS he paid into and then delayed until 70. He's quite a few months late.

[KC]

Yes, at 70 I figured he was applying for regular retirement social security! :-) I hope the paperwork ends up going well. (and at least you don't have to get a lawyer to receive your Social Security retirement benefits, unlike your Social Security Disability Insurance benefits, but still: both should be *drastically* smoother processes!!!)

[theQueen]

KC - it is just criminal how they refuse all disability benefits out of hand.

[KC]

It's pretty awful. A lot of people do give up on being told they're not disabled, and that step at least presumably saves the program a lot of money, but... really? Deny the *disabled people* their *legitimately-paid-for disability insurance benefits* to save money? This seems not the most morally-glowy choice.

[theQueen]

KC - And many disabled people are mentally disabled, and easily depressed, and they give up entirely.

[KC]

"Hi, I'm disabled and can't work."

"Okay, please do these 4-8 hours of work filling out forms entirely correctly with all your medical appointment information and disability information, including various ambiguous questions, or your application will be rejected."

"Uh..."

And that's to *start* with! In theory there are supposed to be local people who will help you with the application, but the number just goes to a voicemail message and they don't call you back.

Anyway. I at least knew some people who had gone through the process to tell me that yes, if you are not blind or a quadriplegic and are under the age of 50, getting rejected twice is normal (a friend got rejected despite *total kidney failure* - she then eventually got a transplant and is back at work), but it is still amazingly disheartening and gaslighting to be told by the government in black and white print that you're not disabled, even when you intellectually know that this is just part of the process. A friend of mine is at "on good days, I can either walk the dog *or* go to the grocery store" level of disabled, which is, yes, some functionality, but is *still* definitely not "can work full time to support self," and she gave up on SSDI, and just... ugh. Anyway. Maybe someday things will get better, if we work at them and vote?

[theQueen]

KC - hard to think about your friend who gave up. It's like a prerequisite for getting disability is that you aren't too disabled. Maybe they read "total kidney failure" as assumed she was going to die, so why move the request along?

[KC]

My friend with total kidney failure did end up appealing and finally ended up getting SSDI and was on that until she got the transplant and recovered enough to be able to work again, but yeah, total kidney failure: should proooobably be an automatic approval, and, apparently and bewilderingly, isn't.

But yeah, friend who gave up on it: she actually has some slim odds of actually getting better enough to work again, at least from home, if she could be in a less-stressful living situation (she has several issues that all compound and some of it might be reversible or made manageable with time and proper treatment and uninterrupted sleep and reduced chaos and stuff) but without a reliable income, she is stuck. As are lots of people out there. Harrumph.

[theQueen]

KC - Harrumph indeed.