July 16, 2009
Let Them Eat Cake, Baby.
This is rich!The folks at the American Social Security service just had a $700, 000 shindig which incuded dancers, entertainment and "motivational speakers"-whatever that means!Here are some of the lecture topics: Managing Diverse People, Emotional Intelligence - Learn to "lead from where you stand", Reasonable Accommodation - Learn how to recognize potential Reasonable Accommodation issues and what actions are needed when certain indicators are present (this is a Muslim thingie no doubt), Removing the Barriers - Learn a hands-on problem solving process that gives employees the opportunity to identify areas of conflicts and concerns in the workplace and options or solutions to address them...
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My own experience with the Social Security Admin:
In 2003, after multiple hospital visits, and 5 days on a cardiac ward for severe chest pains, my doctor had suggested that I take Long-Term Disability to tend to some sever problems.
You see, I had been under an airliner that slammed into One World Trade Center on September 11,2001. I wasn't physically injured, but the experience of that day had, over time, given me a variety of problems; PTSD, Anxiety Disorder, Agoraphobia, OCD, and this just starts the list. The symptoms had been going on for over a year, but all the disorders began to manifest at about the same time.
Because Baby-Boomer Wall Street management types just love to hear P-T-S-D (since all their friends who came back from Vietnam and killed six people and their dog all had it), they were happy to let me go. Couldn't wait to see me off and wsh me well (Man, that's bad! I do hope you get better. Take as much time as you need to heal, Brother! Patronizing bastards).
Very long story short, when you go on LTD here you are entitled to SSDI, Secial Security Disability Insurance benefits. However, you have to make a case before a judge, who can deny those benefits for any reason. 95% of the people who apply for SSDI are rejected, out-of-hand, after a 90-day review period. This is practically SSA policy (bureaucrats need to work, too!). I have heard of AIDS victims, amputees, and one paralyzed person denied benefits on their first claim.
Most people wait between 8 to 12 months for a hearing, and about the same for an appeal.
I waited 23 months - because I had had moved from New York City to Charlotte, North Carolina. Although the SSA had been informed of my move -- and my request to have the case transferred -- no one did anyting about it. Every time I called the office in NY, I was told there was no change in either the status or the location, and no court date was set. I would have to return to NY for the hearing, whenever that happened.
About this time, my insurance policy was starting to refuse to pay out further benefits, despite the fact that I was still a Fruit Loop. I needed that SSDI money, and so decided the best course of action was to call the SSA in Charlotte. I should have done so from the beginning.
They had the case transferred to Charlotte within 10 days, although I still had to wait 4 months for a court date. When I got to court and the Judge heard my case and looked at the medical evidence (40 pounds of paper from a variety of doctors), it took him exactly five (5) days to rule...in my favor. This sort of speed is practically unheard of.
My insurance company promptly sued me for my monetary award, claiming 'overpayments' had been made, despite the fact that I had bought a policy that paid 60% of my base salary for up to 2 years, but which they stopped paying on after 18 months. The amount of money in my settlement was, plus the six months the insurance company witheheld, equal to EXACTLY the amount they would have paid out had they given me my full two years.
How convenient.
Anyway, that's how the Social Security Administration works, and it hurts people who were in far worse shape physically than I was. It ruins people financially. I would go as far as to say that the problem with 'catastrophic' health care expenses in America is not the doctor bills; it's the bureacracy that wastes time and energy when it comes to disability and Worker's Comp cases.
They can't shuffle the paperwork to transfer a case from one city to the next, but somehow they can manage fly several hundred employees cross-country for disco and suntans at a luxury resort?
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