Reply #105: You're so right, Abby, we need to stick together!

[vickitulsa]

I can't think of any other way we stand even a remote chance of changing the trend in this country.

My heart goes out to you and your husband. I know so well the helplessness you feel every single day. My first thought when you described the illnesses he's been diagnosed with and how long he kept working in spite of the debilitating symptoms he suffers was, "How hard it must be for him!"

Of course I identify with you because I'm a woman, too, but I recognize from friends who've been through this sort of thing that for MEN, the blows to their pride and sense of independence are just unbearable. Our culture grooms men to be strong and not to complain, yet when serious illness or injury strikes, they have no choice but to ask for help. I believe it's even harder for them than it is for us.

If I hadn't helped a couple of friends long ago to win their appeals after they'd been denied for SSDI, I wouldn't have won my own case in the "mere" two years it took me. I had already learned The System to a great extent by working through it for others. I know exactly what you mean about all the paperwork and forms they make people fill out, the rigid requirements for qualifying that they present, the difficulty of wording things JUST RIGHT in your responses so you don't "disqualify yourself."

The process is so foreboding and daunting that many just never even try it, or give up with the first denial -- which is virtually automatic, as I'm sure you learned. Many have to resort to hiring lawyers who specialize in this particular field because there is such a need for them. This means that the individual must then fork over up to ONE THIRD of their backpayment amount when they are finally approved. The backpayment amount is what you accrued from the date you first applied for SSDI to the date when you worked through the appeals process and were approved. It can be as much as FIVE YEARS for some, so that amount is sometimes substantial -- hence the attorneys' interest in working such cases for a percentage.

Everywhere we turn, others are trying to skim off a share of the benefits to the poor to line their own pockets! The government does it regularly, with the way they cut funding to programs that help the poor, often eliminating such programs altogether, while they find no problem approving several BILLION dollars PER WEEK for their voluntary war in Iraq!

I have a feeling that as more of the so-called "Baby Boomers" like me reach their senior years and need the Social Security programs they've counted on all their lives -- and paid into all their lives -- to BE THERE for them, something's gonna have to give in this situation. There are so damn many of us, I just don't see how we would all go quietly to our graves, suffering way more than necessary due to lack of medical care, without raising bloody hell about it.

I am very heartened by the responses in this thread, and thankful to you and Handpuppet and Sapphire Blue and Bobbolink and EVERYONE who has been reaching out here. I've put you four on my buddy list and hope to keep in touch. Sometimes just knowing there is someone "out there" who understands and will listen can make the difference in keeping up hope or giving in to despair.

HANG IN THERE, all of you!