In the twelve-month stretch from October 2022 through September 2023, 30,000 people died while waiting for federal disability determinations, according to Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley. Martha asked Harris what she would do as president for people, like herself, who are waiting for disability decisions while in desperate need of health insurance.
Delays in those decisions, driven in part by understaffing and a Covid-related rise in disability rates, have driven the typical wait time from four months in 2019 to seven months today, often coupled with the need to appeal an initial rejection, which can take years. The processing times represent a mounting crisis for the more than 1 million Americans who apply for disability in a given year.
It really pisses me off that we treat people like this. I wish this country actually believed everyone is entitled to dignity and worked to provide it along with a basic standard of living. We easily could. But we don’t because billionaires need their tax cuts and corporations need their handouts.
Dignity isn’t profitable, that’s the basic problem.