The Social Security Administration wants to impose a new layer of disability review on Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) beneficiaries — effectively forcing many of them to "re-prove" their disabilities every two years. This new step will compel beneficiaries living on fixed incomes to produce additional medical and financial records — and could ultimately strip millions of their disability benefits while depleting the Social Security Trust Fund which pays for these unnecessary reviews.
SSDI beneficiaries are among America's most health insecure and financially challenged citizens. Beneficiaries undergoing periodic eligibility reviews, or Continuing Disability Reviews (CDRs), have at least one severe disability. These claimants are typically older, poorer, less educated and housing insecure. They are at least three times as likely to die within a year as other people the same age.
So far, there is no evidence the Trump Administration's proposal would improve the integrity of SSDI or help beneficiaries. In fact, the National Committee estimates that the new system would produce negligible cost savings because of the resources necessary to conduct additional CDRs.
The National Committee, along with our allies in Congress and our coalition partners, accuse the Trump Administration of intentionally undermining the Social Security program through administrative action (or, as Senator Bob Casey (PA) put it, "Death by a thousand cuts"), knowing that legislative changes would be overwhelmingly unpopular with the public.
Roughly one third of American households include a person with disabilities who currently relies on SSDI benefits or may at some point in the future. And so we urge concerned Americans to make their voices heard on this critical issue before it's too late. Please sign our petition to President Trump today!
|
