Michael J. Boskin wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal published last Monday July 15, 2013. It was entitled the 2016 Disability Insurance Time Bomb. As we noted before, the Social Security Disability Fund will be bankrupt in 2016. As Boskin notes, this bankruptcy will hit just before the next Presidential and Congressional elections. Maybe that will force the Congress and the President to address this issue before that time. We hope so. Boskin further indicates \u2018With luck, the looming implosion of the Disability Insurance Fund will focus attention on other entitlements\u2026Coming to grips with the disability program also may provide a guide to reform of the larger programs.\u2019 We whole heartedly agree and hope this impending bankruptcy would be the catalyst and provide a template for reforming the Social Security Retirement, Medicare, and Medicaid programs.
\nHe reviewed the explosion of the beneficiaries and costs (from 2.7 million beneficiaries in 1970 to 11 million in 2012 and an 8 fold increase in expenditures if inflation is factored in during this same time period) and noted that the increase in both measures \u2018is far beyond what would be expected from demographic trends and elevated unemployment\u2019.
\nHe reviewed the legislative history and noted the 1980 Congressionally mandated increased eligibility reviews followed by the backlash which resulted in the 1984 Congressional widening of the criteria to include back pain, arthritis and expanded mental illness diagnoses. Despite this enumeration, these factors still did not account for the explosion of beneficiaries and expenditures. He too then pointed to what Chana Joffe-Walt labeled the \u2018vast disability-industrial complex\u2019 .
\nTo solve the problem with this program, Boskin suggests \u2018starting with a more sensible definition of disability and more frequent re-evaluation\u2019 as well as \u2018better incentives to return to work for those who can.\u2019 He also suggests implementing \u2018another useful reform\u2026base disability-insurance employer taxes on disability experience\u2019. He noted this reform model has been successfully used in the Netherlands.
\nWe hope the spot light shed on the Social Security Disability Program by Boskin\u2019s article will spur the President and the Congress to take action on this soon to be bankrupt program.
\nHarry Pukay-Martin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Michael J. Boskin wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal published last Monday July 15, 2013. It was entitled the 2016 Disability Insurance Time Bomb. As we noted before, the Social Security Disability Fund will be bankrupt in 2016. As Boskin notes, this bankruptcy will hit just before the next Presidential and Congressional […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unitedwestandllc.com\/uws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unitedwestandllc.com\/uws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unitedwestandllc.com\/uws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unitedwestandllc.com\/uws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unitedwestandllc.com\/uws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.unitedwestandllc.com\/uws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":617,"href":"https:\/\/www.unitedwestandllc.com\/uws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions\/617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unitedwestandllc.com\/uws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unitedwestandllc.com\/uws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unitedwestandllc.com\/uws\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}