Social Security Update, Important please read, and be NICE, Please!

[emvickrey]

Quote:
Was this NICE????

It quite obviously was meant in jest as a stab at the lies being passed around about that very thing. It is a ludicrous suggestion on my part just as it is a ludicrous lie.

I honestly don't see a solution to the problem. Our society has too many people with the I got mine sucks to be you attitude. Because of that there will be more and more people having to decide weather to eat their oatmeal or buy their life sustaining prescriptions.

Here's a sad scenerio:
My brother has tried all his married life to find a job that will provide for his family. He has a severly disabled daughter that was born that way. He has done the best he can all these years. He finally got a great paying job and made it past the 90 day period and was given insurance. He had been having trouble with his blood pressure and went to the doc and found out that he has multiple blockages and anurysms throught his body. Jusst as the doctors had decided on how to approach the first surgery and which one to do his job dropped his insurance. He was days away from his first surgery when the hospital found out. He has since been getting different programs to get his life sustaining meds. He has to do without alot also. He is very sick and in constant pain. He got approved for disability and it starts in Sept. but he won't have insurance for 2 years. He won't live 2 years. One of the anurysms is in his Aorta. He won't even make it to the hospital before he'd bleed to death and 2 of the blockages are in veins IN his heart, and one to a kidney. I offered one of mine but who will pay for the surgery?

His wife can't work because their daughter has to be cared for, bathed, diaper changed and she is 19 years old and my brother can't do it. They have a son still in school too. The daughter has been on disability since she turned 18 but her check doesn't even cover the rent. Their food stamps got stopped becaue of the disability check he hasn't gotten yet.

The system doesn't work for alot of people.

My brother n law came up with a solution about the stimulus that got handed out to all these businesses and programs. There are like 150,000 pushing retirement. If each of them got 1 million dollars each and where required to either buy a home in the united states or pay theirs off, buy an american made car and pay off their bills, it would open up lots of jobs and help those that are the retiring age. Those younger would have more jobs available due to all the buying of homes and cars and other things that a million could buy. That would only put a dent in the , what, several trillion dollars that was put out there and used to give raises to already high paid executives. There would be enough to give significant raises to those on disability and ssi. Cut out those that are cheating and getting it based on lies.

 

[pips&peeps]

Quote:
You need to get video footage of this guying playing softball and frisbee and discretely drop it off at the local disability office with his name on it.

 

[rufus]

Social Security was always a ponzi scheme. I just consider myself lucky to get anything out if it at all.

Politicians promise to do things for people, and when they get elected, they do things to people.

There are too many people that want something for nothing in this country. There is no free lunch!

People need to take responsibity for their own selves. They need to stop having kids when they cannot afford them or take care of them. If you are going to drink and do drugs, please don't have kids. If your marriage is shakey, please don't have kids. If you are not married, please don't have kids. They are people, not toys.

As long as this country gives food stamps and rent subsidies, and soon free medical care to people, the country will be flooded with needy people.

You can't tax the rich because most of them now live abroad. American is now eating its seed corn. The whole country cannot function with everyone on the dole.

Rufus

 

[anngili]

You do have to have a legal SS# and have paid into the SS system to be able to get benefits from it unless you're a spouse, dependent, etc. In short, people who shouldn't be getting it don't usually get it. (People who try to bilk the system by claiming to be disabled when they aren't are usually trying to get SSI money, which is a completely different program and different fund.)

The problem isn't with the money being handled out incorrectly; it's with the way the money is paid in. As was stated by someone previously, the problem with keeping the SS system solvent is that it was set up with the anticipation of there always being at least as many people paying in as people drawing money out. At that time, the population rate was expanding, resources and economic growth seemed likely to keep growing (we wish!), and there was always going to be a large enough workforce to support those currently retired or workers who became disabled. When the system was set up, no one factored in what to do if there were going to be a lot more retired workers than current workers.

Unfortunately, we're not currently in that situation and it's going to get worse for a while until there are as many employed workers as retirees, we pay out less to retired workers (NOT my favorite idea), and/or the rules for paying in change (i.e., something like raising the limit on incomes). And here we are . . .

Sometimes you hear about money from SS being used by the govt. to do this or that, but, from what I understand, they can only borrow from the fund briefly and have to pay it back completely. No politician in his/her right mind is going to leave themselves open to the charge of stealing from SS, too. (Thank goodness there's something that stops them from unlimited pork barrel spending, etc.) As a result, borrowing from the fund never seems to have a tremendously big impact, certainly not to the extent of causing the system to go bankrupt.

The same holds true with illegal immigrants and others who use stolen SSNs; if they pay in money, the fund has it. And guess what, they're going to get deported and/or put in jail when they get caught. I'm not sure what happens with the money that they put it, but knowing the fed. govt., once they've got it, good luck getting it back, especially if you've given it to them while pulling a felony. Even if an illegal immigrant becomes a legal citizen, they'd still need to pay into the system before they could get any benefits (unless they became a legal SS beneficiary of someone who is eligible for benefits). They aren't really making an impact on SS benefits. (Not the same story for other funds tho.)

I wish I knew what the good answer to this problem is. It's not a good situation, definitely. Current workers and businesses are having to pay more SS taxes to pay for the greater number of people who are depending on that money and the money is still so tight that the people who are on benefits have (except for this last year) been forced to retire later and later. It is most certainly not fair for all of the people who paid into the fund and were told for decades that they could count on it for their retirement years. It's not much fun to be over 50 and hear that you shouldn't count on SS retirement benefits that you can live on. It's got to be even worse if you're ALREADY dependent on those benefits to just make ends meet and stay alive!

I and a good number of my friends are in the fun position of anticipating being in the workforce until I drop because I don't know if there will be any SS money left for me when I should retire. Oh, well, at least it'll keep me from getting bored, right? I just pray that I won't be disabled at some point!

Does anyone have an extra genie-in-a-bottle? After writing all this down, I think I could really, really use one right now!

In the meantime, I think I'll go work on my coop and watch the chickens; it's much more upbeat!

 

[Whispering Winds]

I have been watching this one, because I have another story to tell about the wonderful world of SS. One of our DD's was diagnosed with autism at the age of 4, and didn't have to apply for SSI until she was in her early 20's. She met a real nice young man, on SSD because of a brain tumor at a young age and depression as a result. When they moved here from southern Illinois, we had a party for them and they stood up and told the families they loved each other and wanted to be together forever. They did exchange rings, from a pawn shop . . .no diamonds or anything fancy. They rented a house from us, at a very good rate, and unknowing to me, the bf left a message on the answeing machine that "you have reached the phone of A and J ______, please leave a message." Well, SS called one day to ask a ? about something, and as soon as they heard the two names together as a married couple, that is when it hit the fan. Not a word was said about it for MONTHS, and one day a letter came stating that he owed $2700 in back pay because he was "married' and had not notified SS. Not only that, the $662 he was getting was being knocked down to $295.50 because of them being a "married" couple. I was his payee, so naturally it fell on me to go to the hearings and do my best to get his money back . . .the first two hearings of course was denied, and we had to go to St. Louis in front of a SS judge and plead our case. This took over a year from start to finish. I spoke for 10 min. and told the judge that J had been on massive medications at the time for depression and migraines, and other health issues and sometimes spoke out of turn, not realizing what he was saying. I said a whole lot more too, and he actually was sympathetic to us. My daughter spoke and told him how impoverished they were as a result of this, and they were in desperate straits because of the ruling. He was so nice to us, I thought we had a chance . . .no such thing. He told us it would take up to 6 weeks or longer for a ruling, but within 10 days we had a letter denying it again. Not only did he get cut more than 50%, he has to pay back $30 a month for YEARS to pay back what they say he over paid. I know from my phone calls, letters, and testimony at these hearing, they have a big red check mark and a bad name by MY name in the SS system. I don't trust them very much these days at all. It was so unfair, and I told them , "these people are on disability for a reason, and you won't let that reason make a difference in your decision, because someone higher up already decided. YOU and your higher ups try to live on $900 for two people and see how far and how long you can stay afloat!!"

 

[gypsy2621]

The truely disabled who can never work or will never be able to work again I have total sympathy for.
I am disabled myself, there are days I can work and then there are days where the pain is so bad I dont even want to breathe.
crippled as a young child by a darn drunk driver)
I worked as long and as hard as I could.
Its only with in the last 10 years the damage has finally caught up with me.

I started this thread so those who recieve SSI SSD would have a heads up as to what to expect, maybe be able to put a little away for the up coming 2 years.
I know Many who dont have a clue, I didn't untill I read it.
It scares me to think how many of our Elderly will have to tighten their belts even deeper.

 

[anngili]

Emvickery, I like your idea!

I also really, really like the idea of someone sending in the videos of the SSI cheater! I hate hearing about people I know who are truly disabled having to choose between cat/dog food and their medicine! Some can't even afford the oatmeal!!!
Maybe there's hope after all!

 

[gypsy2621]

Quote:
That is so sad and unfair.
two names on an answering machine doesn't mean a whole lot, how they got the fact they were married is beyond me?
Did they even bother to look for a certificate of marriage? what was their proof? words on an answering machine. I was always led to believe words on any machine are not legal in a court of law.
It really appals me these kids were treated this way, especially when there are people out there who have no handicaps or disabilities who collect for years and years and never get caught.

 

[DuckLady]

FYI, we have had several reports about this thread in the last 13 minutes.

Thanks to those who are trying to keep it on track.

To those of you being argumentative, contentious and otherwise trying to shut a thread down because you are too opinionated , stop it.

 

[gypsy2621]

Thank You Terri I deeply appreciate the warning.
I am only trying to help where I can I didnt want this to become a debate or an argument.
people need help understanding what they may be up against, hopefull with enough coverage and enough out rage we as a whole can slow down the drain that is being tolled on our Elderly and honestly Disabled Citizens.