For those who swallowed the 60 Minutes SSDI fraud story, hook line and sinker, I say:

[Sheldon Cooper]

Suck it.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/10/07/60-minutes-report-denounced-for-disability-misi/196317

The myths pushed by 60 Minutes have been repeatedly debunked by experts. The report admitted that the vast majority of people applying for benefits are denied, but ignored the fact that the majority of appeals are also denied, and that award rates have actually fallen during the economic recession. In April, the Wall Street Journal called the claim that federal disability benefits were to blame for people leaving the labor force "exaggerated," explaining that disability was in fact the least common reason individuals left the workforce.

As the Center for Economic and Policy Research's Dean Baker noted, the report also "completely ignored all the comments from experts in the field ... pointing out that fraud is in fact not rampant in the disability program." Indeed, the Government Accountability Office has repeatedly found that fraud accounts for approximately one percent of all disability payments.

Furthermore, the recent growth in the program was expected due to shifts in demographics -- as the Social Security Administration explained to 60 Minutes -- and the trust fund which pays for disability benefits is not in crisis. Congress periodically reallocates funds to support the program, and can easily do so again.

The misleading CBS investigation follows a discredited report from public radio program This American Life and NPR's All Things Considered which similarly leaned on anecdotal evidence to make sweeping generalizations and stoke fears about federal disability benefits. More than 100 organizations that advocate for and support people with disabilities signed a letter criticizing the piece, saying it "paints a misleading and inaccurate picture of the Social Security programs," and eight former Social Security commissioners wrote an open letter denouncing the NPR piece. NPR was forced to clarify the report following the widespread criticism.

[uponit7771]

1. I knew something was wrong with the strory when the focused on few lawyers and most of the story was

...about one town in a red state.

Seemed like shotty reporting from the start

[mentalsolstice]

2. Yep! EOM

[TheDebbieDee]

4. 60 Mins did a story in 1990 about most apple orchards being

sprayed by some toxic insecticide and made the connection that the apples were made into apple juice and provided to several school districts across the country.

The juice was pulled from the schools and apple growers could not sell their crops that year.....and the info regarding the insecticide turned out to be false.

60 Minutes can be as irresponsible as CNN.....

[Whisp]

3. K&R!

Lousy lying fuckers.

The enormous weight of lies and deception is terrifying when supposedly 'respected' shows like this become more like Cluster Fux news.

[bullwinkle428]

5. When Tom Fucking Coburn was being touted as the

Congressional "expert" on this issue, I knew the piece was going to stink to high heaven.

K&R.

[Enthusiast]

31. Exactly.

Tom Fucking Coburn is not an expert in anything but bullshit.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

6. Nobody will ever do a piece on 60 minutes about the infiltration of the media by the right wing.

[Enthusiast]

34. yup

[dgibby]

7. Nothing more than a propaganda piece designed to

gin up the rabble rousers and make it easier to screw with SS benefits.

[Sheldon Cooper]

8. The worst part was seeing so many of those rabble rousers right here, on

a website that's supposed to be for liberals.

[Enthusiast]

32. yup

[Enthusiast]

33. Yup

[BlueJazz]

9. 60 minutes "Jumped the Shark" many years ago. They've turned into just anouther...

...Fox News #2.
Their show now consists of bullshit stories, Celebrate gossip and assorted crap for 1 hour.

I wish the fuck that they would do society a favor and just quit. Aggg!

[SleeplessinSoCal]

14. Such is the way of devolution.

I recall first seeing "60 Minutes" in 1974 and thinking what a fabulous new way to take care of serious problems. Mind you I was extremely naive then. But the change has been glaring and is among the best arguments against the theory of evolution. It's sole purpose seemed to be in exposing corruption. Now it's corrupted and with so many alternatives, I think viewers know and just tune in out of habit. I know I do.

Fortunately for them legally, the name "60 Minutes" doesn't lay claim to being anything other than one hour of broadcasting.

[dougolat]

10. Relentless lying pays well, usually works, rarely backfires.

A lucrative industry, funded by excess profits, to protect and continue yet more of the same.

[amb123]

11. I stopped watching 60 Minutes when creator Don Hewitt

and Mike Wallace passed away because I knew it would go "Mainstream Media" and it did.

[former9thward]

12. I believe the Social Security agency would disagree with you.

Of course it depends on what you define as "the vast majority" being denied. SS says on average 53% are denied and on average 45% are granted. Hardly a "vast majority". http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/di_asr/2010/sect04.html

[duffyduff]

21. You are talking about appeals. When you first apply for benefits, the odds are overwhelmingly in

favor of denial. The chances of approval during "reconsideration" are even less.

Applicants very often have to wait YEARS to get approved in front of an ALJ. It is a total crapshoot at that level. Some judges will approve as many as 85 percent of claims, while others approve as few as 15 percent. The ALJs are selected completely at random.

Please take your talking points elsewhere. You are being deceptive in using the SSA site.

[former9thward]

25. I am not talking about appeals.

The SS site is talking about everything. Using the SS own website is deceptive??? A talking point???

The percentage of applicants awarded benefits at the initial claims level averaged 28 percent over the same period and ranged from a high of 37 percent to a low of 26 percent.

http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/di_asr/2010/sect04.html

You are just making up numbers. Or is the SS administration making it up???

[ellennelle]

13. i am an examiner for ssdi applicants

and i can tell you from my experience, having seen hundreds of these applicants, there were only one or two who i thought were gaming the system.

thankfully, i don't have to make that determination; i merely diagnose.

but these people, my god; folks have no idea what our fellow citizens suffer.

what's worse, they clearly do not even want to know.

[madokie]

15. I left the work force due to disability

and no amount of bullshit from 60 minutes or anyone else for that matter will change that. I was awarded disability on the first try. Within 3 maybe 4 months I was getting a check. Been too long ago to remember just how long it took but it wasn't very long as it shouldn't have been in my case.

[alfredo]

20. I also went out on disability. Here is how you do it.

Be honest, be helpful, keep all paperwork. The person on the other end of the phone is a working stiff too, be nice to her/him.

[madokie]

23. Exactly

In my 65 years I've found that to be the secret to most everything we do.

[alfredo]

24. I worked retail for 14 years. I give good telephone.

It took three years to get To the point of applying for SSDI because the Post Office fought it. I got it on the first try.

When I got my disability and pension, there were two others in the office who were waiting seven years for a resolution. They all carried the same mail route I carried. The route was a body buster. It was ten miles of walking every day.

[SheilaT]

16. A while back I was a paralegal for an attorney who did SSDI appeals.

She only took those cases she felt would win, because that's how she made her money. So I got to see what the actual circumstances were of at least some of these people. Every single one of her clients said over and over they'd rather be working.

I also saw as she interviewed prospective clients and the ones she decided not to take. Invariably she said that she did not think they would ultimately win, but that hers was just one opinion, so they should talk to another attorney. In one or two of the cases like that, it seemed to me as though the clients were trying to game the system, but the attorney never commented on that to me.

Plus, I was often appalled at how low the SSDI award was. Because most of these people hadn't worked many years, they just didn't have the earnings record to give them a lot. I don't know what the maximum award is, but it's probably no more than whatever the maximum social security amount is. On top of which, these people were trying to get SSDI because they had some sort of health issues and large medical bills.

Personally, I'm very happy being extremely healthy and able to work.

[Sheldon Cooper]

19. I know someone who got SSDI on his first try, and I can attest that he earned every penny of it.

He is a physical wreck resulting from years of backbreaking manual labor and truck driving. He gets about $1400/month + medicare. I can assure anyone who still thinks there is fraud that he is in no way living high on the hog. Quite the contrary in fact, but this pittance that he gets back, after his lifelong contribution to the system, allows him to live peacefully in his old but paid for mobile home. And fuck anyone who has a problem with that.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

17. Charlie Rose being brought in was a big warning sign.

I watch his show almost every night. Last night his panel pretty much agreed that Obama couldn't give in to demands over the debt ceiling. He seemed to be listening, but near the end suggested that Obama would negotiate in order to stave off the calamitous chain reaction in the markets. It's as though he heard nothing they were saying. I actually think he's is so inside the corporate system that watching him pretty much tells you what they want from Obama. They want to berate him daily as well as rely on him to save them from themselves.

The corporate system is perverse. The Tea Party is perverse. They deserve each other and should leave us out of it.

[WCGreen]

18. I got my SSI first application. Gave me a lump sum dating back to the application

submission date. It was more to get on Medicare as my Dr. at the time said I wouldn't be able to get insurance if my wife changed her job...

Some people do get forced into having more "proof" for their disability.

But it was a clean process for me.

[Mojorabbit]

29. I was denied on the first go round despite reams of documentation

from multiple neurologists for MS. Went the lawyer route and before a judge and was accepted then. It was horribly stressful esp since I was grieving over losing my career as a nurse. I loved going to work every day. I kept my licence current for over a decade just in case I might improve and be able to go back to work. That was ages ago but I remember it like it was yesterday. I still have dreams I am working in the hospital and I am so elated in them. Ah well.

[pam4water]

22. I remember seeing a 60-minutes on how poorly patient out come was under "European" style health was.

The whole show was about how bad universal health care would be for the USA. That was way back.. roughly around 1980. I haven't watched 60-minuters in years. Makes me wonder if it was alway mostly propaganda.

[lostincalifornia]

26. Did they allow the other side on that segment? I did not see it /nt

[bvar22]

27. I live in the conservative rural RED South.

The myths and legends of the Welfare Cheats are pervasive.
When this comes up in a conversation, I always say,

"If people are running the stoplight in (closest town),
it is not the fault of the stoplight or The Law.
The solution it NOT to take the stoplight down,
but to put Cops on the Street.
(Everyone agrees).

Welfare/Disability FRAUD is ILLEGAL.
To stop it, put more COPS (investigators and better screeners) on the Street,
not tear down a program that helps your friends and neighbors."

Most people generally agree.

[efhmc]

28. While I watched it, I thought about the people I knew who

should be getting it and were denied.

[xchrom]

30. du rec.