Rand Paul Knows 50% of People on Disability are Faking it.

[KeepTalking]

So Rand Paul is saying that "over half" of those people applied for back pain or 'being anxious.' That would mean the actual figure is more than four-and-a-half million people. What are the actual figures?

If you look at the second chart in the link you can see that the diagnosis of "mental and musculoskeletal" is more than "cancer and circulatory" and "all other" combined. This means it's more than 50% of the cases.

Since when does "mental disorder" only mean "anxiety", and "musculoskeletal" only mean "back pain"?

 

[dismal]

If you look at the second chart in the link you can see that the diagnosis of "mental and musculoskeletal" is more than "cancer and circulatory" and "all other" combined. This means it's more than 50% of the cases.

Since when does "mental disorder" only mean "anxiety", and "musculoskeletal" only mean "back pain"?

They don't, but I do think they mean the same things they meant in 1981.

Why do you think mental and musculoskeletal disabilities have grown 5 fold since then while other disabilities have not grown nearly so fast?

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Yes, it wouldn't have anything to do with access to healthcare and changes in demographics. It is all fraud, all the way down.

 

[maxparrish]

The unwashed masses don't want to hear why THEY require MORE, anymore than that did Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors:

MORE Uncle Sam MORE. FEED ME UNCLE SAM. FEED ME!

I have an anxiety disorder, don't cha know?

 

[Keith&Co.]

If you look at the second chart in the link you can see that the diagnosis of "mental and musculoskeletal" is more than "cancer and circulatory" and "all other" combined. This means it's more than 50% of the cases.

So, now you just need to show that most people with:
Aboulia
Absence epilepsy
Acute stress disorder
Adjustment disorder
Adolescent antisocial behavior
Adult antisocial behavior
Adverse effects of medication-not otherwise specified
Age-related cognitive decline
Agoraphobia
Alcohol abuse
Alcohol dependence
Alcohol withdrawal
Alcoholic hallucinosis
Alzheimer's disease
Amnestic disorder
Amphetamine dependence
Amphetamine withdrawal psychosis
Anorexia nervosa
Anterograde amnesia
Antisocial personality disorder
Anxiety disorder
Anxiolytic-related disorders
Attention deficit disorder
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
Autism
Autophagia
Avoidant personality disorder
Atelophobia
Asperger Syndrome
Etcetera....
are 'faking' anxiety, while those with impairments from infectious, inflammatory, or degenerative processes, traumatic or developmental events, or neoplastic, vascular, or toxic/metabolic disease are 'faking' back pain. Then Randy's point would almost be established.

 

[dismal]

Yes, it wouldn't have anything to do with access to healthcare and changes in demographics. It is all fraud, all the way down.

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying we've become significantly worse at treating musculoskeletal and mental disorders since 1981?

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Yes, it wouldn't have anything to do with access to healthcare and changes in demographics. It is all fraud, all the way down.

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying we've become significantly worse at treating musculoskeletal and mental disorders since 1981?

No I agree with you that it is fraud all the way down. If only St Reagan could help us!

 

[Jarhyn]

I'd say we have not gotten significantly better at treatment of musculoskeletal disorders, though we HAVE gotten much better at diagnosis of them. The treatment is generally to quit doing whatever caused it. So your statement is a false assumption that treatment quality is the only factor which affects the portion of claims pertaining to those injuries.

 

[maxparrish]

In the continuing forum mission to answer "how much is enough", the "never enough" in unison crowd is so busy being "appalled" that Rand Paul would state the obvious (although inelegantly) they missed that the serious minded have noted this for sometime.

For example, from the Economist: http://www.economist.com/node/18332928

Disability payments
The elephant in the waiting-room

Politicians are ignoring a big, dysfunctional programme

Politicians like to deride expensive programmes. DI may be the least discussed and most muddled. The programme is severely strained. The number of awards has spiked in the downturn, rising 28% since 2007. This surge follows decades of growth. DI accounted for about 10% of Social Security spending in 1989 but 18% by 2009. This is not because beneficiaries are bending any rules; the real problem is that the rules are a mess.

Congress created DI in 1956. Since then physical labour has become less common, while medical technology has advanced. One might have thought that DI rolls would shrink, but the opposite has occurred. Even compared with the Social Security Administration's other costly programme for the disabled, DI is huge. Supplemental Security Income (SSI), which gives help to the very poor, doled out $43 billion to adults and children in 2010, up 124% since 1990. DI gave $110 billion to disabled workers, up almost 420%....

A more likely culprit is the programme's structure. Messrs Autor and Duggan show that DI awards have become more attractive to those struggling in the labour market. Those awards, meanwhile, have become more accessible. In 1984 Congress made it easier for DI applicants to claim mental illness and musculoskeletal disorders such as back pain—both inherently subjective ailments. In 2009 these two conditions accounted for 22% and 31% of DI awards, respectively, about double their share in 1981. Even if an applicant does not meet DI's basic medical requirements, he may eventually win payments for other reasons. DI's rules, for example, allow an older worker unlikely to retrain to get benefits instead. Persistent applicants can seek the help of lawyers. Of those who appeal their case to a judge, almost 90% are successful.

Or from MIT's David Autor, this paper on the unsustainable rise in SSDI: http://economics.mit.edu/files/7388

Two ailments limit the effectiveness and threaten the long-term viability of the U.S. Social
Security Disability Insurance program (SSDI). First, the program is ineffective in assisting the
vast majority of workers with less severe disabilities to reach their employment potential or earn
their own way. Second, the program’s expenditures on cash transfers and medical benefits—
exceeding $1,500 per U.S. household—are extremely high and growing unsustainably. There
is no compelling evidence, however, that the incidence of disabling conditions among the U.S.
working age population is rising. This paper discusses the challenges facing the SSDI program,
explains how its design has led to rapid and unsustainable growth, considers why past efforts
to slow program growth have met with minimal and fleeting success, and outlines three recent
proposals that would modify the program to slow growth while potentially improving the employment
prospects of workers with disabilities...

Also see:

http://waysandmeans.house.gov/uploadedfiles/duggan_testimony_61913ss.pdf
http://publicpolicy.wharton.upenn.edu/issue-brief/v1n8.php

 

[bilby]

At the start of WWI, the British and French went into battle on the western front wearing headgear made from cloth and other soft materials. As the front stagnated into trench warfare, the field hospitals noted an alarming rise in head injuries - unsurprising in troops whose lower body is protected by a trench - and by the end of summer 1916, the decision was made to introduce steel helmets for front-line use. Almost immediately, the field hospitals reported a significant and alarming rise in the number of soldiers treated for head injuries.

Had the High Command then applied Rand Paul's impeccable logic, they would have concluded that these additional cases were caused by men faking injury. After all, protection for head injuries had improved; so the number of such injuries should have fallen. Or perhaps the medics in the field hospitals and casualty clearing stations were simply diagnosing more head wounds; after all, a bleeding gash on the scalp is an 'inherently subjective ailment'*.

Of course, it is too hard to come up with any other plausible reasons for this increase. Those damn shirkers with their fake head wounds should stop bleeding all over the taxpayer's bandages, and get back out there and fight.

Show

Some have suggested that, by wearing helmets, many shrapnel or bullet impacts that would previously have been fatal, instead caused survivable head wounds; and that the increased attendance at casualty clearing stations and field hospitals was due to the fact that only wounded soldiers go there, while the dead ones tended to stay in the front line as corpses, or be buried in cemeteries, without troubling the doctors and nurses with their presence.

Obviously that explanation is too hard to think about, so just in case the increase was due to fraud, they should clearly have cut the pay for serving combat soldiers. And discontinued the use of steel helmets.

*Subjectivity assumed by non-professional commentator with neither experience nor evidence.

 

[Ford]

It is all fraud, all the way down.

It is what the "unwashed masses" are good at. All those poor folks living the good life. We should probably bring Robin Leach out of retirement to host a new show called "Lifestyles of the Poor and Fraudulent" where he regales us with tales of the luxury and excess that is possible while living on disability, Social Security, or food stamps.

"Today we jet off to lovely Fort Wayne Indiana, to explore the palatial estate of Leroy Jenkins, who thanks to an injury suffered on the job was able to retire to a life of luxury at only 50 years old! Leroy's benefits include such upscale items as a wheelchair, which allows him ample time to relax in the sunny Fort Wayne air as he waits for the bus to take him on a guided tour of the city before dropping him off at the Walgreens just a few minutes' drive from his sprawling 700 square foot apartment. You might think such a lifestyle of excess has spoiled jet-set Jenkins, but no! He still shops at Goodwill! Grabbing up vintage clothing is just one of his hobbies, as he also enjoys clipping coupons and collecting stamps...food stamps, that is! We'll leave this welfare daddy Warbucks to his wealth for now...until next week, champagne wishes!"

 

[maxparrish]

It is all fraud, all the way down.

It is what the "unwashed masses" are good at. All those poor folks living the good life. We should probably bring Robin Leach out of retirement to host a new show called "Lifestyles of the Poor and Fraudulent" where he regales us with tales of the luxury and excess that is possible while living on disability, Social Security, or food stamps.

"Today we jet off to lovely Fort Wayne Indiana, to explore the palatial estate of Leroy Jenkins, who thanks to an injury suffered on the job was able to retire to a life of luxury at only 50 years old! Leroy's benefits include such upscale items as a wheelchair, which allows him ample time to relax in the sunny Fort Wayne air as he waits for the bus to take him on a guided tour of the city before dropping him off at the Walgreens just a few minutes' drive from his sprawling 700 square foot apartment. You might think such a lifestyle of excess has spoiled jet-set Jenkins, but no! He still shops at Goodwill! Grabbing up vintage clothing is just one of his hobbies, as he also enjoys clipping coupons and collecting stamps...food stamps, that is! We'll leave this welfare daddy Warbucks to his wealth for now...until next week, champagne wishes!"

While we are engaging in hypotheticals, one could as easily refer to real persons that are truly disabled and without any ability or trainability to earn any income, in contrast to those whose claims are a crutch. Having a beer budget has offered me the opportunity to meet such folk - my favorite being the late 30s couple who were both on SIDI. The wife, a former clerk for a government agency seemed bright and articulate but 'distraught' at working in such a challenging environment. Her husband, a former roofer and framer said he knees were not upto that sort of work. While chugging beers both were "retired" on SSDI with, one supposes, a little off the books pickup work.

Another bright fellow, who I provide occasional work to, spent most of his mid 20s and early 30s on SSDI, his friend the therapist having written how his drug habit and the damage made him unable to work. Mind you, he never used drugs (except on one occasion) BUT until recently he found it difficult to shake himself off his real addiction...his SSDI check (and Medicare).

There are plenty of folk exploiting SSDI, and plenty of folk that deserve it.

 

[bleubird]

Anecdote time.The few people I know that are on SSDI spent years going though the system,and needed a lawyer.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It is what the "unwashed masses" are good at. All those poor folks living the good life. We should probably bring Robin Leach out of retirement to host a new show called "Lifestyles of the Poor and Fraudulent" where he regales us with tales of the luxury and excess that is possible while living on disability, Social Security, or food stamps.

"Today we jet off to lovely Fort Wayne Indiana, to explore the palatial estate of Leroy Jenkins, who thanks to an injury suffered on the job was able to retire to a life of luxury at only 50 years old! Leroy's benefits include such upscale items as a wheelchair, which allows him ample time to relax in the sunny Fort Wayne air as he waits for the bus to take him on a guided tour of the city before dropping him off at the Walgreens just a few minutes' drive from his sprawling 700 square foot apartment. You might think such a lifestyle of excess has spoiled jet-set Jenkins, but no! He still shops at Goodwill! Grabbing up vintage clothing is just one of his hobbies, as he also enjoys clipping coupons and collecting stamps...food stamps, that is! We'll leave this welfare daddy Warbucks to his wealth for now...until next week, champagne wishes!"

While we are engaging in hypotheticals, one could as easily refer to real persons that are truly disabled and without any ability or trainability to earn any income, in contrast to those whose claims are a crutch. Having a beer budget has offered me the opportunity to meet such folk - my favorite being the late 30s couple who were both on SIDI. The wife, a former clerk for a government agency seemed bright and articulate but 'distraught' at working in such a challenging environment. Her husband, a former roofer and framer said he knees were not upto that sort of work. While chugging beers both were "retired" on SSDI with, one supposes, a little off the books pickup work.

Another bright fellow, who I provide occasional work to, spent most of his mid 20s and early 30s on SSDI, his friend the therapist having written how his drug habit and the damage made him unable to work. Mind you, he never used drugs (except on one occasion) BUT until recently he found it difficult to shake himself off his real addiction...his SSDI check (and Medicare).

There are plenty of folk exploiting SSDI, and plenty of folk that deserve it.

Ah yes, the there are an equivalent number of each passive aggressive retort... without any empirical evidence.

 

[Ford]

There are plenty of folk exploiting SSDI, and plenty of folk that deserve it.

As laid out by the latest article in the "Annals of Anecdotal Evidence" entitled "There Was This Guy I Once Knew."


Turns out, "plenty of folk" is an actual unit of measurement in the highly competitive field of anecdotal evidence analysis. Slightly smaller than "a whole lot of people" but considerably larger than the very precise "this dude I talked to one time on a bus."


We can only hope that the new Republican-controlled Congress will employ such experts as these, along with scientists from the highly respected "I Read It On The Internet" Institute to shape policy in this area moving forward.

 

[Rhea]

Yes, it wouldn't have anything to do with access to healthcare and changes in demographics. It is all fraud, all the way down.

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying we've become significantly worse at treating musculoskeletal and mental disorders since 1981?

You really can't think of anything? Like the aging of a boom of babies? Like the increased survival rates (but not full cure rates) from severe injuries? In creased survival times from musculoskeletal diseases? Like the accumulation of toxins from pre-safe-workplace days? Like the decrease in institutionalizing people?

You can't think of a THING that would increase the cases of musculoskeletal and mental disorders?

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Of course you can.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Therefore, any information that is the result of a proper study is wrong, therefore any number I make up is correct. You would understand this if you didn't get most of your information from biased sources. [/conservolibertarian]

And Rand Paul is exactly a Conservolibertarian, so people won't be able to unhack that one.

What's so libertarian about Rand Paul? Can anyone actually answer that? Nope.

 

[Ford]

And Rand Paul is exactly a Conservolibertarian, so people won't be able to unhack that one.

What's so libertarian about Rand Paul? Can anyone actually answer that? Nope.

Can you explain to us why you are the final arbiter of what constitutes a libertarian?

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

What's so libertarian about Rand Paul? Can anyone actually answer that? Nope.

Can you explain to us why you are the final arbiter of what constitutes a libertarian?

Because I'm able to read a dictionary.

 

[Ford]

Can you explain to us why you are the final arbiter of what constitutes a libertarian?

Because I'm able to read a dictionary.

Holy crap...me too!


I guess that makes me an authority on what makes someone libertarian!


Based on your reasoning, Rand Paul is libertarian because I said so.


You can't really argue that.