If you have any contact with the Social Security disability system I am sure you wonder who thought up this crazy system.
You wait for 2 to 3 years to have someone tell you that you are disabled or not. Isn’t there a better way?
I am sure that if we all sat down at our computers and blogged out ideas we could come up with a better system in an afternoon.
Problem is that it would probably cost more money, personnel and effort than any administration is willing to invest.
The dirty little secret is that disabled people have not reached the tipping point to bring in more money and personnel to speed up the process.
The Bush administration has a pilot project going to speed up the process. However, it does not appear that it will make much difference.
There may be some hope with a change in Congress and with a presidential election upcoming but there has been democratic control before and not much has happened.
There is way too much budgetary pressure from the war, and spending overruns in other areas to expect loads of money dumped into SSA for more administrative law judges and review people.
That does not mean we should give up hope or stop trying to change the system. By all means, we should contact our elected representatives and ask them to look into the disability case backlogs and what ways we can speed up the system(see congressional link). What about a computer system that screens the vital information such as education, age, work history and medical conditions and spits out a triage of cases that meet listing and grid criteria. I am not talking about another computer contractor boondoggle that rips off the taxpayer. But something that uses available information SSA is already compiling and makes faster decisions.
Anyway, in addition to advocacy groups, I think it is worth it for citizens to contact their government and ask them to work on improving the social security disability adjucation procedures.