Victorious

Not long ago I won a case against the government. They said that I'd been paid over $38,000 in disability benefits that I wasn't entitled to by working more hours than were allowed under the terms of Social Security Disability. I never thought trying to get healthy and work as much as possible would result in the stress and fear of five years having this hanging over my head. I got an excellent disability lawyer who stayed with me through 5 years of paperwork and bullshit, we went to appear before a judge and he ruled in my favor. I should have had a champagne filled celebration right then, but I was so worn out by the whole thing--imagine having the government of your country send you a bill for $38,000 every few months and accusing you of misusing a system that they make almost impossible to use in the first place--and there were other life events that came up so that I never got around to celebrating winning a case against the government, in a realm where most cases are lost.

This $38,000 charge is still on my credit report and I'm working to have it cleared as well, and ready to consider some serious adjudication if it interferes with me gaining employment. So the fight continues. Not only am I not liable for this money, the judge made it clear that I never owed it in the first place. I'm just starting to realize what a toll it took on my mental and physical health, the same health that the Social Security Disability system is suppose to give leave to improve.

Basically, the way the system is set up now, you have to be really ill for six months and unable to work in order to apply. I was lucky in that I had private disability insurance at the time and they have a whole team of lawyers who manage the application process so that they can mitigate their costs. Once you are approved it may take another six months for your benefits to begin. Among those benefits is access to the Medicare system, which would have come in handy during the first year of illness where I was paying exorbitant health insurance premiums. Most people are not approved the first time because a Reagan era rule says "most people are fakers." This is the point where most people either get a disability lawyer or give up. Imagine--you are so sick that you cannot work--and you have to hire a lawyer to manage a process whereby the system that you've been paying into for many years decides whether or not they are going to assist you to get back on your feet. It's LUDICROUS, vicious, cruel, and generates so much red tape that oftentimes paperwork is lost and the social security employees you meet are overburdened, burnt out and surly.

Once I was approved and started to receive benefits, I was subject to a quarterly review process that involved lots of paperwork for my poor but wonderful doctors to prove that I was still too sick to work.  I also had to write anecdotal screeds to say how sick I truly was and what my days were like and they were bleak, I can tell you. When you are that sick, it's undermining in the extreme to have to keep proving it. You're already doubted by family members, friends, and society, especially if you have an illness that doesn't look like what people think illnesses should look like--invisible symptomology. But I dutifully complied, writing about the grossest of body processes, the depression and isolation, the utter humiliation of not feeling as though I could take care of myself.
Several times, SSDI said they didn't receive my paperwork and threatened to cut off my benefits, but I'd send everything by certified mail so that I had proof of their receipt. A good lesson when dealing with any large organization with which you correspond.

Finally, I started to feel a little better through massive effort, 8-12 medications, pain therapy and my momma's prayers. I decided that I wanted to start working part time. Around the same time, SSDI offered a back to work program that I was thrilled to discover sounded pretty humane. You would be able to work part time for a number of months and make as much money as you could while still retaining benefits. If you relapsed during this period, you could start the whole period over again so as to ease your way back into work. I enrolled in this program and was set up with a person in a nearby town who was to monitor my progress. I ended up showing up at his doorstep for 3 appointments before I gave up and enrolled in the program on my own. I was fortunate to find part time work and kept track of my wages and expenses to make sure that I was within the SSDI work guidelines.

SSDI continued to say they'd lost paperwork, hadn't received my Medicare premium payments, and once went 6 months without passing these payments along to my HMO. I gritted my teeth and carried on. There were several months that I was ill and couldn't work my full complement of hours, and I dutifully made sure SSDI knew about it and started to count the months over again.

In early 2006 I received communication from SSDI saying that I owed them $38,000 for benefit overpayments that occurred when I thought I was still within the guidelines, and they said I'd never informed them that I returned to work. Again, thank you certified mail--they'd signed for the letter I wrote them and had enrolled me in the back to work program.

I started to get really scared. I'd known there was a level of incompetence at SSDI, but when your federal government says you owe more than you've been able to earn in the past decade, it's very, very frightening. And I prided myself on keeping track of things, even in the throes of great discomfort, even after long hospitalizations. I felt like I was fighting against a warlord and all his hoards with a broken bow and arrow. And, to make matters worse, my benefits were abruptly suspended causing me to have to rely on family, to my horror, to be able to stay even moderately independent.

Oy.

A friend recommended a wonderful disability lawyer who actually took the case. Most lawyers won't take an overpayment case because they take so long, the odds are so long that you'll actually win, and the pay is minimal since they are representing people who are too sick to work full time.  This lady was the exception, though she made it clear to me what a crap shoot these cases were--some folks won who plainly shouldn't have, and some people in the most dire of circumstances ended up paying miniscule monthly amounts for the rest of their lives to address to the overpayment. And this kind of debt, once adjudicated, cannot be discharged by bankruptcy. You can spend your money and time to appeal until they reverse the decision or until you expire and how grand a process that would be.

As the wheels of the bloated buracracy turned over the next 4 years I was paralyzed by fear. I was afraid to make too much money because it's better for the case to continue to be disabled, and I was afraid to make any kind of move financially or physically. The stress didn't exactly help my recovery, either, so by the time we got a court date (which was twice moved, and finally took place on the day I was to have gone on a long vacation with my family, but I ain't complaining too much) I was a wreck.

My lawyer's partner, a pert little thing with a glittering smile, met me at the courthouse and we went into the judge's chambers.

The judge was an ancient and sat on a high podium while we sat at a table in front of him.  He was sat so high up that I had to crane my neck a little to see him. I'd made up my mind that I wasn't going to whine or cry, or further debase myself any more than my illness already had, so I told my story succinctly. My only objective was and is to get healthy and to work, to be fully independent again.  He'd obviously gone through all of the paperwork and he asked some very astute questions. He also complimented me on sending certified mail as it showed a paper trail of many of the items SSDI said it had never received (thanks, Momm!) Finally he said to me: "Didn't you know you were being overpaid?"

"I was not overpaid, your honor," I said. "I felt I was well within the rules as I understood them."

"Okay, young lady," he said, "I'll write my decision within the week." As my lawyer and I emerged from the building I tried to eke up some relief but none was forthcoming. I'd lived under this cloud for many years and it's weight isn't so easily shed.

And, of course, it took 3 months for the decision to be rendered and sent out. And then three separate but identical letters showed up in my mailbox over a week's period, each stating that the judge had decided that I did not owe the overpayment. It was hard to believe and I didn't really believe it until my lawyer called me in jubilation to make sure that I knew. We won, we won, we won!

But the toll it took and continues to take. The fear and anxiety and stress have been hard to shake and I certainly am loathe to re-apply for benefits even if I'd need them in future. And there is the credit report to deal with.

So the cost to my health and my family and friends who worried with me is much more than $38,000.

But what I'm most mad about is not the feeling of needless victimization, of my family's money spent on lawyers fees, of the sleepless nights worrying that I'd spend the rest of my life trying to pay off a debt I didn't owe--it's that people who are sick, really sick, and certainly a lot sicker than I was, well meaning people who have worked hard and don't have the backing of the government that they pay to support in their time of need.  I wish our legislators could spend just one day feeling as helpless and diminished as I did. I wish Mr. Che of the Somerville Social Security office had taken one moment to feel some empathy instead of spitting at me and others who were far less capable than I to deal with his nastiness. (He's since been let go and the office has shut down. Huzzah!) I wish Ronald Reagan had to spend one day trying to decide between buying medication or having enough to eat.  If not for my family, I would have soon been homeless and my heart aches for those who weren't as fortunate.

Our government is suppose to be what  we turn to when we need to make a way out of no way.  That's what the disability program is supposed to be about. And I find that I'm still afraid, that I'm still waiting for some other part of the sky to fall--and that's no way for any one to live.