|
 Social
Security Debate and Persons With Disabilities (PWD)
Steve Gold, Information Bulletin # 77, January 2005
For more articles like this
visit
https://www.bridges4kids.org.
As the
Administration begins to push to privatize Social Security,
persons with disabilities have been virtually absent from the
public discourse. The disability community should be asking
their elected federal representatives some critical questions
regarding the program.
Here is some background and some possible questions.
1. Social Security is a publicly federally administered
Insurance Program, not a private individual Retirement program.
The money taken out of our wages is (supposed to be) put in a
Reserve Fund to fund future payments based on risk of death and
disability, as well as retirement. The push for Private Accounts
does NOT take into account the Insurance aspect of the program.
2. About 47 million persons receive monthly payments from three
components of what the general public refer to as "Social
Security."
These three are Social Security Disability Insurance, Social
Security Retirement Insurance, and Social Security Survivors
Insurance. I believe that the payments from the Reserve Fund are
not earmarked to any one of the three programs but are
intermingled.
What will happen to SS Disability Insurance and SS Survivors
Insurance when the SS Retirement Insurance funds decrease as
persons pull their payments out of the Reserve Fund and put
their money into private accounts?
3. For nearly 7 million people, these payments are their entire
monthly income. Nearly half of these 7 million would be below
the poverty line if they did not receive their monthly payments.
4. Let's now focus on only persons with disabilities:
A. About 5 million persons receive ONLY Social Security
Disability Insurance. These are persons who worked sufficiently
long to pay into the Reserve Fund and to receive these benefits
when they became disabled. By definition, they are under 65
years of age and have not been converted to Social Security
Retirement Insurance.
B. There are another 5 million persons who receive ONLY the
federally funded Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits
because they are either blind or disabled persons. These persons
can have the exact same disability as persons who receive SSDI,
but they have not worked long enough to have paid enough into
the Reserve Fund to qualify for SSDI.
How the SSI program will be impacted and affected by current
SSDI proposals has not been addressed or answered. For the
disability community, this is critical. Why would the federal
government continue to fund SSI isolated from the normal growth
of SSDI? Does the disability community want the SSI program to
look more like an "entitlement" program or be exposed to the
political process without a full SSDI program?
C. There are more than another million persons (between 18 -65)
who receive BOTH SSI and SSDI - the "Dual Eligibles." How will
these persons be impacted or affected? Will a persons' SSDI
monthly payment be made dependent on stock market returns? Does
anyone think Congress will permit SSI to increase to make up the
loss of the SSDI investment?
D. What about Medicare and Medicaid? How will these be funded
under a privatized SSDI system? Now, persons on either SSI or
dual SSI/SSDI receive Medicaid directly from their State
Medicaid Program. Federal Medicare payments are supplemented by
individuals.
Who really thinks their State will pick up the difference. (Read
PWD, YOUR GOVERNOR AND "REFORMING" MEDICAID - THE BATTLE
CONTINUES - Information Bulletin #75, 12/04 on my webpage
www.stevegoldada.com).
E. There is also the third part of the Social Security program -
Social Security Survivors Insurance benefits. Many persons with
disabilities who were born with their disability currently
receive monthly checks based on the earnings of their parents
payments into the Social Security reserve fund.
What will happen to disabled persons who currently receive
Survivors benefits if the market takes a dip?
Marty Ford of the Arc of the U.S. and CCD's presented terrific
testimony before Congress' SS Task Force. She and they requested
a "Beneficiary Impact Statement" regarding how the various
Social Security proposals will affect persons with disabilities.
What an idea? No change without analysis. Know the facts BEFORE
one makes changes and even discuss those facts as part of the
dialogue.
Ask your Congressional representatives to support a Beneficiary
Impact Statement.
Steve Gold, The Disability Odyssey continues
Back issues of other Information Bulletins are available online
at
http://www.stevegoldada.com with a searchable Archive at
this site divided into different subjects. To contact Steve Gold
directly, write to
stevegoldada@cs.com.
Back issues of other Information Bulletins are available online
at
http://www.stevegoldada.com.
bridges4kids does not
necessarily agree with the content or subject matter of all
articles nor do we endorse any specific argument.
Direct any comments on articles to
deb@bridges4kids.org.
back to the top ~
back to Breaking News
~ back to
What's New
| 