Waiting In Ohio

A 57-year-old man has waited three years and counting for a Social Security disabilityAn impairment that qualifies as a disability under Social Security Administration (SSA) guidelines must be quite serious. The impairment must render the applicant unable to perform any substantial gainful activity — that is, the applicant must not be able to earn more than a minimum amount of money, determined each year by the SSA. The impairment must completely disable the applicant from working. It must be expected to last for a year, have already lasted a year or be expected to cause the applicant's death. But this is not the end of the qualifying tests. determination because of his failing heart, vascular disease, cirrhosis of the liver and hepatitis ...

Social Security Administration Commissioner Michael Astrue doesn't gloss over the problem with his federal agency. He has told Congress that the jumbo-sized backlog stems from an increasing baby boomer caseload, years of underfunding and an increase in Social Security's responsibilities coupled with a 5 percent staff reduction from 2003 to 2007.

Astrue, who took the top job in February 2007, said that while "everything is focused on moving in the right direction ... there is no one magic bullet" to cut through the backlog, stemming from years of the "system being out of whack."

"It's hard if you are on the waiting end," Astrue said. "We are making progress ... (But) it is a lot of detail, and it is hundreds of things we have to focus on."

Astrue is sending 13 new disabilityAn impairment that qualifies as a disability under Social Security Administration (SSA) guidelines must be quite serious. The impairment must render the applicant unable to perform any substantial gainful activity — that is, the applicant must not be able to earn more than a minimum amount of money, determined each year by the SSA. The impairment must completely disable the applicant from working. It must be expected to last for a year, have already lasted a year or be expected to cause the applicant's death. But this is not the end of the qualifying tests. judges to Ohio this year, two of them to Columbus.

He wants to cut the 761,000-case national backlog by about 60,000 a year. "The whole thing is completely broken" and that the disability benefitsYou can get disability benefits if you: are under full retirement age, have enough Social Security credits and, have a severe medical impairment (physical or mental) that’s expected to prevent you from doing "substantial" work for a year or more, or have a condition that is expected to result in death. process is "so woefully out of date that it has to be totally overhauled and streamlined," Astrue said.