Organizing my Ideas; Econtalk on SSDI

This week's Econtalk podcast (at econtalk.org) is "Autor on Disability".  David Autor explains the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI).  It was so enlightening!  If you want to learn about how SSDI works, and some ideas to make it work better, listen.  According to Autor, the SSDI will go bankrupt in 5 years.

Quotes from the transcript
"At present more than half of all awards are for mental disorders and musculoskeletal disorders."

"So, currently there are 8.6 million disabled adults receiving SSDI benefits, about 4.7% of all adults aged 25-64 in the United States  So, it's roughly 1 in 20, a substantial number."

"And the cost of the program is also very substantial. So, approximately $130 billion a year in cash payments are made through SSDI, and then the Medicare component adds another $70 billion to that."

"So if you even just divide that by the number of U.S. households, it's over $1500 in expenditure per U.S. household; if you think about it, that's ultimately coming from taxpayers."

"from 1999 to 2011 there was a more than doubling of applications"

"So in 1981, let's say, about 2.2%, 2.3% of adults ages 25-64 were receiving SSDI. So the fraction of the population receiving it has doubled."

"The SSA is bound by law--again, this is Congress's decision in 1984--to give sort of first weight to the evidence provided by the disability claimant's own medical counsel. So, if the SSA does contract with what's called a consultative examination for each applicant, it is required by law to take seriously the evidence provided by a claimant more than by its own consultants. And only in cases where it has reason to believe the applicant is distorting the information can it have the right to ignore it."

"So, there's a very powerful kind of for-profit advocacy component to getting people onto SSDI. So, there are many law firms that specialize just in this practice."

"And finally, they changed the rules regarding continuing disability reviews (CDR). So, previously a CDR was essentially a de novo evaluation of the case. In other words, you start from scratch and try to reach a new decision or not. Congress said: Well, now, CDR, to terminate someone based on a disability review you must prove that they have recovered from whatever state they were in at the time they were given benefits. So, if they were given benefits by mistake, that's not sufficient. They have to have recovered from whatever that state was to lose benefits."