Voters are asking questions—and the Harris campaign needs a plan.

In the twelve-month stretch from October 2022 through September 2023, 30,000 people died while waiting for federal disability determinations, according to Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley. Martha asked Harris what she would do as president for people, like herself, who are waiting for disability decisions while in desperate need of health insurance.

Delays in those decisions, driven in part by understaffing and a Covid-related rise in disability rates, have driven the typical wait time from four months in 2019 to seven months today, often coupled with the need to appeal an initial rejection, which can take years. The processing times represent a mounting crisis for the more than 1 million Americans who apply for disability in a given year.

  • @[email protected]OP
    50•1 month ago

    So a bit more info on this … if you look up the average of the demographic that tries to game a system it usually sits somewhere between 2-5%. Unfortunately the powers that be have decided that even tho 95-98% of people follow the rules, everyone has to be vetted (and often denied) so the ‘bad’ ones can be filtered out.

    Untold b/trillions are spent doing this, far surpassing what it would cost to just have basic vetting where people in need would be able to access funds/services within 30 days.

    Edit to add – This is ONLY good for individuals. All corporate entities should be held to a minimum wait of 6 months to be completely vetted.

    • @[email protected]
      18•1 month ago

      Reminds me of… I want to say Florida requiring drug tests for welfare. They probably spent orders of magnitude more than they saved.

    • HubertManne
      12•1 month ago

      This is one reason im a basic income, universal healthcare, etc person. I have found the beuracracy that is put in place can usually be navigated by the gamers because that is what they do but it blocks the folk that could use the help and if they got it sometimes can be productive and even pull themselves out of the situation.

    • @Etterra
      6•1 month ago

      That’s because our government, from top to bottom, has a punishment-based attitude when it comes to any and all violations of any rules or laws. And instead of precision strikes, they use flamethrowers.

      • @[email protected]OP
        5•1 month ago

        Problem is the rules aren’t enforced on everyone. Just us peons face the full extent of them.

    • @[email protected]
      4•1 month ago

      This usually bears out in large workplaces too, most of the employee mistakes are genuine, about 5% are deliberately done by psychopaths. I mean real mistakes like HIPAA violations, not clocking in late from lunch.

      • @[email protected]OP
        1•1 month ago

        Yup. Afaik those numbers run across the board, although I have seen an insanely low number for one Ontario social program a few years back (like 0.68% found to be scamming).

          • @[email protected]OP
            1•1 month ago

            Sorry, I can’t even remember what kind of program it was for. My ADHD just picked up on the number and logged it into my brain without a reference point.

            Gimme a bit and I’ll see if I can find it.