Rand Paul’s Plan to Change Social Security Disability

For much of last year, the media was running frequent articles about the Social Security disability fund and how it would run out of money in late 2016. We heard that if Congress did not come to an agreement to fully fund the program, there would be as many as 11 million Americans who would see their Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) benefits checks cut by just less than 20 percent.

While many Democrats were urging GOP to resolve this upcoming budgetary crisis as soon as possible, many GOP presidential hopefuls vowed not to award any more money until Congress agrees to a major overhaul of the program. There were those who felt the federal disability program should not be administrated by the United States Social Security Administration (SSA) as they were seen as an unnecessary middleman.

However, as many predicted at that time, the GOP would eventually agree to fund the program because it would look very bad in a election cycle to make millions of Americans suffer to prove a point. As it turned out, those people were correct, and the GOP did decide to agree to fund the program for a few more years by allocating additional funding in a plan proposed by President Barack Obama.

One of the biggest opponents of allocating more money to the Social Security Disability Insurance fund was Senator Rand Paul, who at the time was presidential nomination hopeful, before Donald Trump managed to pull ahead of everyone else.

While the money has already been allocated, and disability fund will have money for the next few years, according to a recent news feature from TIME, Paul was recently at an event where he told seniors what he would do to overhaul the program. It should be noted that Paul was frequently saying that most of the 11 million Americans who suffer from a serious disability and depend on Social Security Disability Insurance benefits and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits to make ends meet are essentially gaming the system with fake injuries. However, as our Boston disability attorneys have seen in many cases, most claimants are seriously disabled and would much rather be healthy and working than applying for benefits.

As for Paul’s plan, he vowed to raise the retirement age for those claiming Social Security retirement benefits and make it more difficult for disability claimants to prove they are disabled. This is not a very popular approach, and Paul did acknowledge that fact. He said his does not make him happy, but it is a question of numbers and this how he plans to fix the problem. It should be noted that when he still considered himself a viable presidential candidate, when he was asked about his plan, he was unable to provide any of these details and said only that it was something his team was working on. Now that he is not longer a presidential hopeful, he is willing to share his plan to “fix” the system by making disabled people suffer a loss in benefits.

If you are seeking Social Security Disability Insurance benefits in Boston, call for a free and confidential appointment at (617) 777-7777.

Additional Resources:

Rand Paul Tells Seniors He Would Change Social Security, January 5, 2016, TIME, By Philip Elliot

More Blog Entries:
Hanson v. Colvin: A Critical Look by a Court of Appeals on a Denial of Benefits, August 14, 2014, Boston Disability Lawyers Blog.