Sorry folks there is disability fraud

[haele]

66. I beg to differ.

Many people think it's not a huge issue because for the most part, the people committing fraud eventually get caught.
Everyone I know on disability has to get reviewed to maintain their status after ten or fifteen years, and they don't get to choose the doctor that SSDI tells them to go to for the review. There are truly disabled people who get thrown off SSDI because the SSDI doctors are often encouraged to find some reason to kick them off - especially those with mental illnesses or with chronic pain.

Your "friends" run a 75% chance of getting caught sometime within the next 7 years - if not sooner, if they are committing fraud. Their lawyer might have cherry-picked the doctor, but Social Security won't.

In the meantime, people are using the "fraudulent claims getting caught" numbers to say that there's this hu-u-uge problem - because bad people are getting taxpayer money.

Yes, I am saddened and disgusted when individuals scam safety net system. But I'm not up in arms, because from what I know, the chances of continuing the scam are against them, and most scammers end up either in jail or having to pay their money back.
There is an incentive for an enforcement mechanism when it comes to maintaining SSDI (and Worker's Compensation) compliance; mainly that in a corporatist culture, poor folks are disposable scum, and that there's a corporatist media meme that has invaded our collective morality in which "taxpayer money should never be used on the unworthy".

Frankly, the majority of healthy people in the US would rather a hundred disabled people suffer and enter into an third-world quality of life, then let one or two "perfectly healthy" assholes like your friends get an extra $1K a month.

The interesting point to consider is that most of those very same people have absolutely no problem with petty income tax fraud and will willingly work under the table for a little extra spending cash.

We used to live next-door a really rockin' bartender/DJ who told us about making a good additional $500 - $2000 a month in private parties and cash tips that he never claimed on his taxes. Was ahead on his mortgage, had just remodeled his cozy little bungalow house, had a nice late model SUV for his gear, a Ski-Jet and took off half the winter to go Snow-boarding at high-end resorts. Always had the most beautifully cut hair and a great manicure.
We watched his dog when he was out having his fun or spending a week or so on the underground party circuit.
Claimed he cleared over $150K one year as a private DJ under the table, while his W-2s and 1199's only showed around $40K in tips and wages for the year between his bartending job and official catering contracts.
That's about what - $5 - $6K in Federal Tax revenue he cheated the IRS out of, and around $1200 in revenue that he cheated the state of California out of that year? $3K to Social Security? $700 to Medicare?

If I did the accounting, and considering multiplicative property of revenue, he probably actually cheated the federal government out of a year's payment of benefits to one actual SSDI recipient. Heck, he probably could have paid the equivalent of entire year's worth of fraudulent claim payments to one of your construction worker friends if he had paid taxes on that under the table money.

Under the Table tax fraud is the sort of fraud is far more endemic than SSDI and/or Worker's Comp fraud. But no congress-critter is talking about increasing taxes or IRS enforcement processes to catch tax cheats.

To get uproariously outraged about an individual scamming the system, vice a corporation (i.e., a legal practice, insurance companies, or companies that lie to the Worker's Comp system) smacks of the outrage over the few "Trading Food Stamps for drugs and alcohol" fraud cases as an excuse to gut Food Stamps and SNAP programs.

Haele