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Meet The Disability-Industrial-Complex: Up To 45% On Disability Insurance Are Frauds
Submitted by Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
If the American public knew what was going on in our system, half would be outraged and the other half would apply for benefits.
- Marilyn Zahm, one of the 1,500 disability judges operating in the U.S.
I’ve known about the “disability” scam for many years now, but I had never read a report that details the racket until I checked out the following from CBS’ 60 Minutes. As usual, the real money being made in the whole scheme is not centered around the people collecting the checks, but rather attorneys, doctors and even judges who grease the wheels of the $135 billion “disability-industrial-complex.”
For example, in the economically depressed border area of Kentucky and West Virginia we find 10%-15% of the population on disability, or three times the national average. The regional disability racket is essentially run by attorney Eric Conn, who’s clients for disability enjoy a 100% success rate thanks to Mr. Conn’s relationship with doctors and a local judge named David Daugherty.
Here are just a couple of examples of how Mr. Conn uses his advertising budget:
Senator Tom Coburn explains to CBS’ 60 Minutes that:
Coburn says the report — to be released tomorrow — will show that Conn collected more than $13 million in legal fees from the federal government over the past six years and that he paid five doctors roughly $2 million to regularly sign off on bogus medical forms that had been manufactured and filled out ahead of time by Conn’s staff.
Just another scam from a scam economy. More from 60 minutes:
The hearing involves the Federal Disability Insurance Program, which could become the first government benefits program to run out of money. When it began back in the 1950s it was envisioned as a small program to assist people who were unable to work because of illness or injury.
Today, it serves nearly 12 million people — up 20 percent in the last six years — and has a budget of $135 billion. That’s more than the government spent last year on the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, and the Labor Department combined. It’s been called a “secret welfare system” with it’s own “disability industrial complex,” a system ravaged by waste and fraud. A lot of people want to know what’s going on. Especially Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
Tom Coburn: Go read the statute. If there’s any job in the economy you can perform, you are not eligible for disability. That’s pretty clear. So, where’d all those disabled people come from?
The Social Security Administration, which runs the disability program says the explosive surge is due to aging baby boomers and the lingering effects of a bad economy. But Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Senate Subcommittee for Investigations — who’s also a physician — says it’s more complicated than that. Last year, his staff randomly selected hundreds of disability files and found that 25 percent of them should never have been approved — another 20 percent, he said, were highly questionable.
Sen. Coburn says disability payments are now propping up the economy in some of the poorest regions in the country. Which is why he sent his investigators to the border area of Kentucky and West Virginia.
More than a quarter of a million people in this area are on disability — 10 to 15 percent of the population — about three times the national average. Jennifer Griffith and Sarah Carver processed disability claims at the Social Security regional office in Huntington, West Virginia.
Full Segment here:
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It's even worse than it seems, as disability fraud is particularly prominent among police and firefighters (and presumably other breeds of government pig).
45% fraud rate for disability claims in US? The Federal Reserve owns 35% of the (previously) issued T bond market. Seems like the fraud starts at the top .
there is a good reason why Jesus Christ was talking about donations and not taxation system for a society to succeed in its developement
i hope now everyone can see the results that is how taxation perverts the whole society
If you want to never work a day in your life all you have to do is get FAT at 18.
I'm not even American and I personally know several people in the USA on disability. None of them are unable to work, in fact, some work on the side (unofficially of course).
One of them is ex US military. He doesn't even know why he's on disability. Just bought his second home, is looking for a third.
How is it possible that a non-American knows all this and you guys don't?
This is nothing new Thirty years ago, I was working a job that was coming to an end and there were no good employment prospects ahead. I fiegned an injury, got checked out by a chiropractor, an osteopath, and an orthopedic quack. I was awarded a nice monthly disability claim and flew to the island of St. John, U.S.V.I. Four years of resting my injured self on the warm sandy beaches earned me a generous cash payment.
The only difference between then and now is that usgov is busted, because they gave all to the banksters. The low hanging fruit is the little guy, who will lose his fraudulent freebie, while the banksters grab every penny.
the wheelchair symbol is a status symbol, PAID.
Revolution the TV series is too weird. It has Washington D.C. nuking East Coast cities.
Crazy psyops shit.
"...the mainstream media “discover” every day various cases of deceit and corruption which refer exclusively to corrupted public sector employees, people that do not have the right to receive pension, or other similar cases, giving the impression that the problem comes exclusively from this type of corruption, in order to hide the big responsibilities of the banks."
http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2012/10/some-methods-of-disorientatio...
Such an old trick. They did that over here in the netherlands decades ago. Low unemployment numbers and a million people disabled, mostly on psychological grounds. On a population of 16 million.
Jim Rogers once exclaimed on the netherlands: You normally only have so many disabled after a war.
But the people getting disabled get good pay and don't need to work (but can on the black market), docters approving it see happy smiling faces from both employer and employee. The only one stuffed is the tax payer and he can't say no because he gets a state gun on his head.
I remember this. It was great for employers because they could finally lay of the old and hire young, cheap staff.
The government wanted to get out of superhigh youth unemployment, so that's why they did it.
It worked for a while until the economy went south again and people started to complain about it.
Then the re-examinations came and all of a sudden 75% found a job...
The Americans with Disabilities Act (along with Clinton's shit stained Violence Against Women Act) has done far more damage to America than Obamacare could probably ever do.
If I hear another one of Obama's radio ads touting the supposed accomplishments of the Americans with Disabilities Act I'm going to have a nervous breakdown.
Where's Senator Coburn on the Trillion$ given away to foreign and dome$tic bank$ter$ over the last five years?
**crickets**
Pick your preferred flavor of choice for source:
Fed Audit: Trillions For Foreign Banks, Conflicts of Interest
Trillions of Dollars in Bank Bailouts: Socialism for the Rich?
The Fed Audit
Trillions In Secret Fed Bailouts For Global Corporations And Foreign Banks – Has The Federal Reserve Become A Completely Unaccountable Global Bailout Machine?
Fed Loaned Banks Trillions in Bailout, Bloomberg Reports
Shocking: The Fed’s Trillion-Dollar Foreign Bank Bailout - Fox ...Or the hard hitting 60 Minutes story on corruption at he highest levels....
I have seen a bunch of disabled gringos down here in Mexico, damn, they are in good form!
USA is number one even when they are disabled, kudos.
So how do we get the real con artists, the banksters, in jail?
I forgot, Sweden did this already in 90's and realized it won't work, does it mean we are #1?
This disability bubble is also a product of terrible Fed policies which have driven our country into a hole. All of this is a substitute for productive jobs and steady increases in wages. Feds look the other way cause it keeps the GDP numbers up.
Add a dose of crooks and enablers - same crowd surrounds the dispensation of federal largesse in the warfare state as well, minus the hot chicks.
Certainly this couldn't be a case of going to an emotional issue to distract the masses and take their attention off of the politico's. No I'm sure Coburn is exposing corruption and scams that dwarfs in monetary terms this SSDI scam he's pointing out. Heck they might even go so far as to censure one of their own for stealing billions in taxpayer dollars.
Catching a single disability scammer (a citizen that isn't disabled but getting benefits) will save the taxpayer say $18-20k a year. Catching a Jessie Jackson Jr was much more lucrative yet I didn't hear Coburn or anyone else making an example out of this politican nor digging deeper to find others doing the same and more. I believe it was Biden that proclaimed something about "government wasting $5 billion doesn't matter as it's only a drop in the bucket..." (I know the quote isn't exact) and everyone just shrugs their shoulders and goes along with it as the govenment pisses away (and "loses" or misplaces billions more) but this article gets 60 minutes airtime.
To quote the entire SSDI budget $135 Billion, and then connect it to a small area in Kentucky/W Virginia where 10 to 15% of the area is on disability (which must make it a scam) is the political version of bait and switch. Assuming that percent is correct and they are all scams, how many people is that?
Think about that area again, oh yeah it's easy for most to assume "stupid hillbilly" and envokes the notion of "Deliverance" in most folks minds which is very clever for Coburn. But maybe that area has a high disability rate because of something legitimate. Maybe this has something to do with the years of coal mining these folks did. I would be curious to know what portion of this area has Black Lung or other lung disorders and how does that stand up statistcally to Black Lung across the nation.
Politicians hollering about a scam by a certain group of citizens in order to get the rest of the country to grab thier torch and pitchforks perhaps may have other motives. Instead of grabbing you torches you may want to turn the investigative light back to the messenger. Just like any good magician the messenger is more than likely creating a lot of shiny bright lights or someother distraction because they do not want or need the light shone on what they are really up to.
Of course I could always be wrong and this politician is a selfless servant of the people and is representing the citizen with nothing but dogged honesty and integrity and this is only the first of many frauds he will expose even if the fraud resides within his own breathren.
Coburn's been on waste and fraud in govt. since he's been in office. Corporate subsidies and welfare too.
http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/oversightaction
Anyone who wants to cut DHS and Pentagon is OK by me.
The fact that the lefties hate him with a malevolent virulence is an added bonus.
It's pretty obvious that CONN's name isn't Blankfein or Dimon. CONN helps people. The other two gang rape your grandma daily and get away with it.
I approve of the people who are taking Ssdi and ssi
it is the right thing to do morally since the system has fucked over the working class.
I say screw the society that outsourced all the jobs and made the econony suck while prices for neccessities and health care are out of reach, not to mention education
fuck the system til it crashes and let's see how your well off fare then.
roll the credits this show is going to end. wonder what the second feature will be like
This "$135 Billion complex" is what percent of $17 Trillion? How does this $135Billion going to US citizens (rightly or wrongly) compare to how much that goes to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Haiti, Africa, Latin America, Dept of Energy, Dept of Education, Homeland Security, Congressional staffers and travel, Lobbyist, Shadow Government Black Ops....
Yes by all means focus on this "Complex" because those other "Complexes" are not worthy of Coburn's investigative prowess. Some things just make you go Hmmmm.....
The one thing that is sure, honest hard working people have a damned hard time navigating life in the US as they are the most abused group and drag their asses around doing what they have to do to get by which I believe the politicians, lawyers, media etc... not only count on but exploit to the hilt. That's the greatest crime of all.
What politicians are going to lead the fight to knock people off the SSD roles....noone...just think what the MSM would do to that person..roll out a wheelchair person with a big sob story.....they would trash the person and the party..and we all know what that party is....maybe this not passing a debt ceiling is a way to do it thru the back door....no money..cut the pay...
when you say DISABILITY-INDUSTRIAL-COMPLEX, you mean BANKING-POLITICAL-COMPLEX, right?
This has been going on for a long time. My wife & I starting out lived in a 2 family home in CT in the mid 1980's. In the other half lived a single mom with a "disability". She said she had seizures but was on medication which controlled it. Never saw her have one. She did not work. Everything was handed to her. Rent, food, oil for heat and spending cash. She was much better off than we were busting our asses at a job all day. We struggled & sacrificed to make ends meet while she struggled to spend extra money so she didn't have too much in her account. Totally unfair. I know others, too. While I'm all for helping those down on their luck, temporarily, there is way too much fraud in the system.
So the 47% is really 45%. I say pull the plug on the malingerers. Which by definition includes lawyers.
It begins early. Laughing through the melancholy, you watch people teach their kids to act fucked up to get SSI "crazy money". Eyewitness multiple times.
I work with unemployed and disabled people every day. What is going on with the disability system is very unhealthy, but it's not all fraud exactly.
There is a large and growing population of "unemployables" who are unable to find any "real" work, work on which one could consistently support oneself. One category is people with any kind of disability. Legally, employers can't discriminate against them, but in this job market discrimination is rampant across all categoiries, protected or not, and almost impossible to prove. And the "unemployables" are seeking shelter from the storm wherever they can find it.
Many of the disabled, perhaps most, could work, especially if an employer would provide them with accomodations. But in many cases they are unemployed because they are disabled. Once on SSI or SSDI, they need to define themselves as unable to work in order to avoid being removed and charged with fraud.
So, admitting again that this is unhealthy, even a social disaster, is it fraud, if one is unemployed because one has a disability?
The whole system is rigged from the outset. The states want people off of the welfare roles because welfare is funded at the state level. Disability is funded through federal channels. There are plenty of people, just like this attorney, who make a very profitable living transferring people from the state tit, to the government tit. Here is an NPR article discussing this;
http://www.npr.org/2013/03/27/175502085/moving-people-from-welfare-to-di...
Boy, if that ain't the truth. As an orthopedic surgeon, all I see is the new entitlement mindset: disability. Even when people are 100+ lbs overweight, suddenly they blame the arthritis in their knees because they have had to work on concrete floors for twenty years, but no injury.
Boy, if that ain't the truth. As an orthopedic surgeon, all I see is the new entitlement mindset: disability. Even when people are 100+ lbs overweight, suddenly they blame the arthritis in their knees because they have "had to work on concrete floors for twenty years", but no injury.
The lawyers/judges are in on it as well. Makes me sick.
Erkel Bankrupts USSA
Bring back the work house. You poor? Can't work? We'll fix that.
Dorm halls with cots. Farm fields in back. Sewing shops and carpentry over there. No checks.
Pull up a stool, 500 lbs. of potatos to peel.
This would be the most sucessful Govt. program ever. 0% participation rate.
It's past time to quit. Starve the beast. Just say no. Every chance you get, don't submit, and don't pay. If you can barter, do so. Pay in cash. Do you think that restaurant, hairdresser or plumber is reporting the cash? If you self-withold and pay quarterly, file but don't claim but a small amount. Any nuisence tax (dog fees, etc.) don't pay it. Fuck them. And stand up if someone tries to say you need to pay this. Fuck them.
There is more and more rumbling out there and like most movements it just needs a spark and a loud leader/symbol. It might just be some average Joe who gets pushed too much and says Fuck them, I am a free man and will live like one or not, but I care not either way. It just takes a spark and then very few to join for sucess and we can start this thing over.
The Saul Goodman of SSI
WTF, where do I sign up for the health insurance racket???
I was just getting use to my butt plug (10% yearly increase in premiums) and this year it's going up 20% ?!?!? ACA in action?!?! Nice.
My "high deductable" family plan is $13,000 per year! I have to pay $19,000 before insurance starts kicking in! What planet are we living on?
My family can have a new baby and still be under $19,000. What's the point of this insurance?
If my company offers insurance I can't use the exchanges (which would probably be cheaper). In two years the penalties will become significant.
Between the rabbit holes and the corporate/government graft it's a crying shame. AND the US has exported it's inflation across the globe... have you looked at housing prices around the world these days? Sheesh!
Where's that damn reset button!!? How is it that the scam can even continue?!? Where's Nibiru when you need it? Haha!
As far as Im concerned, everyone should go get all the benefits they can, and quit working. Use the extra time to make a garden and improve your ability to be self sufficient. That would put the banksters out of business fairly quick Id say.
While I say this - I couldnt bring myself to do it. Ive been living off savings for years, and could take SS - I just dont.
"I've fallen and I'm pretending I can't get up!"