Disability: A $260 Billion Scam, Part I

Omar Gonzalez spent the last year or so telling friends that the government was trying to spy on him.  He was sure people were trying to break into his home.  He put his cell phone in a microwave.  Gonzalez would have been just one more increasingly crazy street person, until September 19^th when he decided he had to tell the President that the atmosphere was collapsing.  At that point, Omar became the luckiest man in America.  I can imagine no other explanation for why he is not dead.  Mr. Gonzalez, armed with a knife, leaped over the fence at the White House.  Despite the presence of Secret Service personnel, trained guard dogs, locks, barriers, and snipers all evidently on stand down because—well—force is so…so…Republican, Gonzalez sprinted across the lawn, and through the North Portico door.  He over-powered a guard at the door, ran through the foyer and on into the East Room where he was finally subdued.  Thankfully, he ignored a staircase that led directly to the living quarters of the Obama family. 

            This was an impressive display of broken field running for a man receiving disability because of a bad foot.  Omar’s disability comes from the military and that is a different matter, but it did get me thinking about the skyrocketing civilian disability enrollment that America is now facing.  We do have people who rightly deserve disability payments; I am not talking about those people.  But, over the last 30 years, we the people have created a monster that does not serve the truly disabled, costs us $260 billion each year and sucks the dignity, productivity and self-worth out of our citizens. 

            The national average of workplace disability is 4.6%.  Utah has the lowest with 2.9%; West Virginia the highest with 9%.   None of these people, by the way, are considered, “unemployed” so they make employment figures look better.  That is a win for the federal government but a real loss for taxpayers. 

The number of former workers who are now on disability keeps rising (from 2.5 million to 8 million since 1995), despite better medical care for all of us and stricter laws prohibiting discrimination against the disabled. 

            There is no medical diagnosis called, “disability.”  As far as the government is concerned you are disabled if you have a condition that keeps you from working.  But for every person who tells me they are on disability, I can show you one with the same physical condition that holds a job.  For Heaven’s sake, I saw a man with an artificial leg operating a logging truck!  The difference in most cases is not the ability to work but the will to work.  Life is neither easy nor pain free for anyone.  We all play injured.  It is part of the human condition.  There is a part of me that wants to say, “Stop whining!” but I digress.

            Since 1995 the number of people on welfare has dropped from 5 to 2 million.  During that same time the number of people on disability has grown from 2 to 7 million.  All of this has been accomplished by states such as Missouri who hire private companies like Public Consulting Group to move people from welfare (which the states must pay for) to disability (which the Federal government pays for).  The state of Missouri pays PCG a bounty of $2300 for each person moved to disability and saves money in the process. 

            It is legal, but it isn’t right, and it costs much more than money.  What happens next is the subject for my next blog. 

            Work for a living and keep the faith.