Disabled And Waiting

CBS News Investigation: Backlog In Disability Benefits System Leaves Thousands Of Vulnerable Americans Stranded

 

ATLANTA, Jan. 14, 2008

 

(CBS) This is the first part of a CBS News investigation into Social Security disability benefits.

 

Each year, millions of people who are disabled from an accident or disease turn to the federal government for Social Security disability payments - a benefit that every worker who is declared disabled is eligible to receive. It's a 51-year-old government insurance program - a lifeline of sorts - that every worker pays for through that line-item on their pay stub, known as FICA.

But a two-month CBS News investigation reveals that safety net may not be there when you need it most.

"I always figured that I'd die in a fiery car wreck or something, never that I'd be disabled," 33-year-old Scott Watson told CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian.

Two years ago, a failed surgery left Watson with a fracture in his spinal cord. It turned his life upside down, leaving him unable to work in his job as a broadcast engineer.

"Everybody says, 'You gotta have a positive attitude,'" Watson said. "You know, and I say, 'Well, I am positive. I'm positive this is the end,' you know. I mean it's not going to get better."

Declared disabled by the state of Maryland, Watson was told he was "shoo-in" when he applied for federal disability last year, only to be turned down three months later on the grounds, according to federal guidelines, he wasn't disabled enough. Watson appealed, and was denied again.

He's one of 27,000 Maryland residents - 68 percent of all those who applied - to suffer such a fate.

Overall, two out of every three people who apply for federal disability benefits are rejected by a government agency that critics say is out of date, underfunded, and incapable of serving the exploding number of disabled Americans. Waiting times for a hearing in some cities are more than three years.

Linda Fullerton, an advocate for the disabled, told Keteyian: "I have people all the time writing to me, saying they are suicidal."

Fullerton's online support site is home to one horror story after another.

Reading from emails, she said: "Had to file bankruptcy to keep home. Losing home with four children."

A two-month CBS News investigation has found that over the last two years, at least 16,000 people fighting for disability benefits died while awaiting a decision.

Overall, the backlog of cases now stands at 750,000 - up 150 percent since 2000.

People wait an average of 520 days for a hearing on their claims.

People like Jerry Rice, who calls an abandoned tool shed home. When we found Rice, who suffers from mental illness, he'd been waiting for three years for his day in court.

"So. Jerry, this is how it ends up for you?" Keteyian asked.

"This is how it is," Rice replied. "I hope it's not how it ends up."

But he believes he deserves the disability?

"I'm not asking them to give me welfare," Rice said. "I'm just asking them to give me what they promised. Yeah, I deserve it."

"It's a mess from the time you apply - till the time you get a hearing," said attorney John Hogan, who has represented thousands of folks in Atlanta, the backlog capital of the nation.

"We're the furthest behind of any area of the country, it could take 2.5 years to get your hearing," Hogan said.

That's because there are some 24,000 cases waiting to be heard. And only about 15 local judges to handle them.

"We have a lot of room for improvement," said Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue, who took over the federal disability program last year. He stepped up efforts to fix the system many call broken.

"So I think it's been broken the way a leg is broken," he said. "And it can heal. And it is healing."

Keteyian asked: "But what do you say to the people who have stood in that line, that three-year line?"

"I don't have a defense. I don't think it's a good thing. It don't think it should have been allowed to happen," Astrue said. "We're probably not gonna be able to drive back the backlog down at the arte that it went up. But we're sure as hell gonna try."

That's little consolation to the likes of Scott Watson, who has had to rely on his parents to simply survive.

"You pay into a system that you think is gonna help you in your time of need, and it doesn't even acknowledge that you even have a problem," Watson said.


Attorney Daniel Bernath says, "write your congressman and senators.  That's the only way to get any results here."


© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

 

(CBS) This is the second part in a CBS News investigative series about federal disability program.

Two years ago, 52-year-old Sherry Farner was a manager at a Denny's restaurant. But heart problems, strokes, and kidney failure put an end to her employment.

"I can't be alone, because I fall a lot. This is the hardest thing I've ever been through," Farner told CBS News chief investigative reporter Armen Keteyian. "And I wouldn't wish this on nobody."

When Farner filed a claim against a lifetime of paying into federal Social Security disability, she was turned down -- twice. Even though a rejection letter acknowledged she was severely disabled. But not disabled enough: Unable to perform work of any kind.

"It's a very tough standard," said Michael Astrue, commissioner of the Social Security Administration. "And you can argue whether that should be the standard or not, but I'm stuck with that."

A two-month CBS News Investigation uncovered a system whose own standards have been called into question - a federal agency reeling from budget cuts and high staff turnover. Doctors making decisions outside their specialties, and inexperienced examiners under pressure to keep costs down.

"We're failing the disabled on a very large scale," said Trisha Cardillo, who worked inside the system for years, reviewing 200 federal disability cases a month in Ohio.

She now fights for those seeking disability benefits.

"There were a lot of times when I was fighting with management because I wanted to approve a claim," Cardillo said. "And I had to go through so many steps and - jump through so many hurdles to do that, it just seemed ridiculous,"

All part, says Cardillo, of a culture built on denial. Examiners warned by their superiors that approving claims today could cost the government millions tomorrow.

"So are you saying, in essence, there was a quota system?" Keteyian asked.

"Every state had different numbers," she said. "They know that a certain percentage of people, once denied, will never file an appeal."

CBS News has learned that two-thirds of all applicants denied last year - nearly a million people - simply gave up after being turned down the first time.

Given how many claims are ultimately approved, that could mean hundreds of thousands of Americans are not getting the benefits they paid for - and deserve.

Keteyian asked Astrue: "One of the state examiners we spoke to, told us that people were singled out, talked to, if they approved too many clients."

"You can approve too many, and you can approve too few. And they're both wrong," Astrue said.

That's not what the examiner told CBS News. She said that in her state there were quotas to be kept at a certain level.

"It's not the way the system works," Astrue said.

Keteyian said: "That's the way it worked in her office."

"You can always find a disgruntled person," Astrue said.

But we found nearly three dozen former examiners from 14 states who told us about a system-wide "culture to deny."

Part of the reason for that, says Jim Allsup, who employs former SSA employees at his Illinois-based company Allsup Inc., is that there is “an inherent conflict-of-interest between protecting the disability trust fund and providing the appropriate level of service to the claimant.”

That’s something CBS News found in a review of 50 cases across the country, where patients diagnosed with strokes, heart attacks, even brain cancer, were rejected for disability payments.

"Nobody cares if a case is denied. If you approve it, it will be subjected to intense scrutiny," Cardillo said.

No surprise to Sherry Farner, whose case was finally approved by a judge a few weeks ago - after a two-year wait. But not before losing her car, her life savings, and nearly her home.


Attorney Daniel Bernath says, "write your congressman and senators.  That's the only way to get any results here."

© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.