Sorry folks there is disability fraud

[bluestateguy]

179. I will never doubt that fraud in that, and other, programs exist

Disability, welfare, food stamps or special tax breaks for business and industry. There will always be a little fraud. You won't ever be able to root it all out.

There will always be a little fraud in contrast with the many, many more people who are using the program fairly and legitimately under the law.

So what do you do about it? If you find people defrauding a government program, then by all means, kick em off and hold them accountable. Sure, you want to stop the fraud before it happens, and you can create a level of scrutiny to do that, but at a certain point you are also going to be harassing, intimidating and creating onerous burdens for legitimate claimaints. All to root out a comparatively small number of people who are committing fraud. Some of these legitimate claimants will be intimidated away from applying for benefits to which they are legally entitled, or given the level of scrutiny that is applied, they may not have the necessary documents and certifications to apply.

So with a program like SSI, you want to make sure legitimate claimants can apply, lest they go without help (and possible become homeless or starve). As it stands now it takes over a year to process the applications, and the first round of applications are so rigid that many deserving applicants get denied because of a technicality.

So it may not be popular to say, but we have to tolerate a small level of fraud as inevitable in any government program so that legitimate recipients can get the help they need.