The number of former workers enrolled in the Social Security disability program has more than doubled in the last two decades, and the reasons why have little to do with the health of our workforce. According to the letter of the law, disability recipients must prove they are too physically or mentally impaired to hold a job. And early in the program's life, the most commonly reported ailments were easy-to-diagnose problems such as heart-disease, strokes, or neurological disorders. But after the Reagan administration began trying to thin out the program's rolls in the early 80s, an angry Congress reacted by loosening its criteria. Suddenly, subjective measures like self-reported pain or mental health problems earned more weight under Social Security's formula. Today, the most common diagnoses are musculo-skeletal issues, such as severe back pain, and mental illnesses, such as mood disorders -- health problems where the line between a disability and a mild impairment is far blurrier.
As of last year, Social Security's disability trust fund was on pace to run dry by 2016, which would lead to an automatic 21 percent benefit cut affecting all of the program's participants, including the millions who truly can't work because of their impairments.
The article puts the recipients in two categories, truly needy and lazy. They leave out a large group who draw the benefit and work on the side.
As a doc I can tell you that the rules have become very slack the last few years. I have plenty of patients putting disability forms in front of me that (to my medical eye) aren't disabled in the least. But they're hoping to work the system.