From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel:

More than 750,000 Americans are stuck in a growing backlog of unresolved disability cases, growing destitute as they wait for a decision on whether they qualify for Social Security disability benefits. Some injured and ill people have become homeless or bankrupt while waiting for rulings. Federal officials say the situation is improving, but slowly.

The aging of Baby Boomers and layoffs of people who had been struggling to work while hurt and sick have sparked a jump in disability cases, federal officials and patient advocates say. As a result, the backlog of claims and the wait for case hearings have doubled since 2000, despite efforts by Social Security to address the problem.

The agency acknowledges the backlog and attributes it to years of budget cuts that reduced staff while claims jumped. The government is whittling the backlog by hiring 189 more administrative judges, switching to electronic records, holding hearings by videoconference and testing programs that quickly approve clear-cut cases.

See earlier post here.

UPDATE:

See also: Backlog for Social Security cases — Minneapolis Star Tribune

From the Wall Street Journal:

A growing number of financial service companies are springing up to help parents provide for the future care of their children with disabilities. They help navigate the maze of federal and state programs, and assist parents in setting up trusts, coordinating estate plans, and educating future caregivers.

These tasks have become increasingly vital as people with disabilities are living longer than ever before, frequently outliving the parents who support them.

Miami lawyer Barry Nelson (far left) set up a special-needs trust for his fourteen-year-old son Jesse, who has autism. The trust will be funded by life insurance when Nelson dies, and can be used to pay for expenses beyond what Medicaid or SSI would pay for.

Nelson says a special-needs trust “gives me — and it gives every parent — peace of mind.”

A sidebar provides a list of financial planning resources.

(Wall Street Journal photo)

… Obama has substantive plans for all people with disabilities

Writing in huffingtonpost.com, Paul K. Longmore says presidential campaign coverage has included a lot of talk about “special needs” children, thanks to Sarah Palin, but little about the issues that concern the 54 million Americans with disabilities of all ages.

Longmore compares the stances of the McCain-Palin ticket and the Obama-Biden ticket on healthcare, health insurance and social services for people with disabilities. An excerpt:

Even though 90 percent of the 54 million Americans with disabilities are adults, Palin, John McCain, and the news media have talked almost exclusively about children. And that talk has been mostly about “compassion” not “issues.” The McCain-Palin campaign website has a single page on “Americans with Disabilities for McCain,” but it says nothing about policy positions. Other pages mention autism and disabled veterans but no other issues.

In contrast, Barack Obama and Joe Biden have said little on the campaign trail about disability issues but their campaign website provides detailed policy proposals in a comprehensive “Plan to Empower Americans with Disabilities.”

Paul K. Longmore is a professor of history and director, Institute on Disability, at San Francisco State University. His “Open letter to the disability rights constituency” appeared exclusively on this site last month.

From USA Today:

Groups representing people with Down syndrome say Sarah Palin could help boost efforts to help people with disabilities live more independently.

Among the priorities they cited were additional funding for physical therapy after birth, long-term financial incentives to help people with Down syndrome pay housing and medical bills into adulthood, and strengthening the No Child Left Behind law.

They also called for lifting the $2,000 cap on assets for Medicaid eligibility requirements, because the cap encourages people with disabilities to make less money in order to qualify for federal benefits.

Madeleine Will, vice president of public policy for the National Down Syndrome Society, said advocates also want Congress to make changes such as:

• Requiring doctors to provide more detailed information about Down syndrome to parents who receive prenatal and postnatal diagnoses, including life expectancy data and contacts of local support groups. The idea has support from lawmakers on both sides of the abortion issue.

• Allowing families to save money in tax-exempt accounts that can be used to pay for expenses associated with education, medical treatment and employment training.

Harold Pollack, writing on huffingtonpost.com, salutes Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as one person to another touched by disability issues.

He says, however, that Palin is wrong in her desire to deny women the very reproductive choice she enjoyed: the choice of continuing or terminating a pregnancy upon receiving an unexpected prenatal diagnosis. An excerpt:

Governor Palin is also mistaken in her support for broader Republican social policies that make it harder for millions of Americans living with physical and cognitive disabilities to get the healthcare and social services they need. If you ask people living with disabilities and their families what they need from government, many will say that they need things Democrats would provide and Republicans would not. They need adequate Medicaid funding. They really need universal health care. And they really need protections for individuals with preexisting conditions.

… Then there are the schools. Many people with disabilities need special education and health services in schools. Democrats have fought for these things. Republicans typically oppose them. Less tangibly, persons with disabilities need an ethic of common provision in this country that is the antithesis of what conservatives and libertarians euphemistically call an ownership society.

All this is for another day. A tough election should not blind us to our common humanity. Anyone who walks the walk in the service of her personal beliefs deserves my friendship. So congratulations, Governor. You don’t come close to earning my vote, but you are welcome in my home, any time.

Harold Pollack is an Associate Professor at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration and faculty chair of the Center for Health Administration Studies.

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue has announced plans for a massive reorganization of the state’s social service agencies, including the creation of a new agency  dedicated to mental health care. The proposal would do away with the state’s massive Department of Human Resources.

Perdue’s plan came as the state is undergoing a federal investigation that could force it spend millions on its mental hospitals. The federal probe came after the Atlanta Journal-Constitution attributed as many as 136 deaths of state hospital patients to neglect, abuse or poor medical treatment.

“We have reached the bottom of the barrel with mental health,” said state Sen. Renee Unterman. Members of the reorganiztion study committee said the hospital’s deficiencies played heavily on their recommendations.

See also: ‘3 finally get Social Security disability’:

Three people who had waited years for a decision on their Social Security disability claims all were granted benefits this month after being profiled in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Earlier post here.

From Youtube.com:

At a town hall meeting in Raleigh, North Carolina, Senator Barack Obama was questioned by woman who identified herself as the mother of a child with Down syndrome who had leukemia and had undergone open heart surgery. She said her son’s name is Adam.

Q: The doctors in the hospital were commenting that I was lucky that he was getting any benefits at all, because he wasn’t really going to be anything in life. He was just going to be a dependent on everybody’s social security. My question, sir, is what are you going to do about changing the word retardation, disabled, genetically altered, for our children and for our future children, for everybody here in the United States, to make a difference in their lives, to include them, sir.

Obama: … In terms of terminology — I think the word retardation is a bad word. That’s old. We need to put that to bed …

…. I have said that as president, my goal will be to achieve full funding of special education. Because no child is disposable, every child is special, and we should make sure that we’ve got the resources in place without taking money from other children in order that they can learn and succeed and achieve their full potential. So God bless Adam. We love Adam, and thanks very much for the wonderful question.