The Kansas City Star Editorial Board writes that people with developmental disabilities plead for help in the state Capitol annually, but keep getting pushed aside. More than 4,100 Kansans are on waiting lists for residential and home-based services — waiting lists that didn’t exist as recently as the 1990s.

Waiting means delayed therapy for children whose social and physical developments depend on services. It means idleness for young people who have finished school and are shut out of job programs. It means unending stress for families seeking a group home placement – or even respite care – for a disabled adult. Many Kansans have been on hold for more than four years.

“If we had a 4,000-person waiting list for kindergarten this year, someone would do something about it,” said Tom Laing, executive director of InterHab, a statewide advocacy group for people with disabilities.

… A state’s character is defined by how it treats its weakest citizens. By that measure, Kansas has much work to do.

From the Birmingham News:

Alabama has agreed to settle a nine-year-old lawsuit over the state’s lengthy waiting list for services for people with intellectual disabilities. The settlement does not force the state to spend more money on services, but will provide families with more information about what services are available and where they stand on the waiting list.

An attorney with the Alabama Disability Advocacy Program said the settlement agreement will make the system more “consumer friendly.”

Thomas Holmes, president of the Arc of Alabama, Inc., said he is concerned the waiting list is climbing. The waiting list numbered about 1,600 in 2006 and was 2,100 in July.

“All we can do is bring this to the attention of legislators and say this is a big problem,” Holmes said.

From AP/Gainesville [FL] Sun:

Advocate Mike Coonan has launched an organization called “Left Behind in Florida,” to lobby for the more than 18,000 people in Florida waiting to receive services from the state’s Agency for Persons with Disabilities.

Coonan’s 26-year-old son has epilepsy and autism. He lives at home and works at a local supermarket with the help of a job coach and his family.

When Coonan, 64, and his family moved to Pensacola from Michigan in 2004, they were surprised to learn the state had a list, and more surprised to find out it could be years before families might receive services.

“We didn’t know we’d be left to fend for ourselves,” he said.

Coonan and his wife, Prudence, said they are not seeking help for their son while they are alive, but for other families who need help.

Earlier posts here.

From the Associated Press:

Social Security officials say they expect an unprecedented wave of new disability claim applications, as aging and injured baby boomers lose their jobs in the recession. There are worries that the extraordinary increase will add to processing delays that have plagued the agency for years.

It’s expected that the agency will receive 3.3 million new claims in the next year, an estimate that’s grown by 300,000 claims in just the past few months. The number of people waiting to have a claim processed is up 30 percent since last fall, to more than 736,000.

Making matters worse, at least 10 states have furloughed the federally-funded employees who process benefit claims.

“We’re going to be moving backwards this year, the question is how much,” Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue said in an interview. “The trend line isn’t good.”

From the Baltimore Sun:

A Maryland state agency is combing through a waiting list of 19,000 people with developmental disabilities to find out who still needs services. The backlog goes back decades.

Michael Chapman, executive director of Maryland’s Developmental Disabilities Administration, says the state is not looking to drop people from the list. It is seeking to weed out applicants who have moved, no longer need assistance, or need different services, he says.

The initiative underscores the scarce funding for a program that has left some families waiting for more than two decades, says Cristine Marchand, executive director of The Arc of Maryland.

“We feel like pingpong balls between the administration who says they don’t have the money and the legislature that says they’re not raising taxes – ‘go back to the governor,’ ” Marchand said. “And meanwhile, people continue to wait.”

From the Washington Post:

Veterans group are urging Congress to overhaul Department of Veterans Affairs procedures for handling cases as the backlog of unresolved disability claims nears the one million mark.

The American Legion and the National Veteran’s Foundation are both criticizing the VA for delaying veterans’ benefits, but the VA argues that the 1 million figure is misleading and that it is incorrect to refer to it as backlog.

Critics accuse the VA of resorting to semantics. “It seems like they’re looking at ways to minimize the significance of it,” said Steve Smithson, deputy director of veterans affairs and rehabilitation at the American Legion.

“At the end of the day, these are still individual veterans waiting for benefits they were promised,” said Meaghan Smith, a spokeswoman for [House Veterans' Affairs subcommittee Rep. John Hall (D-N.Y.)]. “If you asked the veteran waiting, he or she would call it a backlog.”

From the Associated Press:

The Veteran’s Affairs Department backlog of unprocessed claims will soon reach the one million mark. Wounded veterans say they face stress, unemployment and mounting debt as they wait to receive their government benefits.

Veterans are waiting more than four months on average to have their claims reviewed; appeals take a year and a half.