As you may already know from previous entries, I was hurt on the job in October. Not gonna rehash it here, but suffice it to say I am completely unable to do the work I normally do. Some days I can't even walk around without agonizing pain. Others I can get around without too much trouble, but even on my best days I can't lift anything weighing more than maybe five pounds. This prevents me from doing even basic daily activities by myself, like carrying a hamper full of laundry downstairs or buying groceries and loading them into my car. (The car that very recently was repossessed because I STILL haven't been paid the money I'm owed.)
As I talked about a few entries back, I applied for SSD (Social Security Disability) due to my inability to work and the failure of the insurance company to pay my worker's compensation. I also applied for unemployment and food stamps because I had absolutely ZERO money coming in. I was approved for food stamps, which is a whopping $102.50 per month and cash assistance in the same amount for a grand total of $205 in monthly income. Not nearly what I need to stay in my house.
Yesterday I received a letter denying me disability on the grounds that I worked as a credit checker for a sales company over five years ago and that job did not require me to lift human beings. They said I should just go back to doing that. Leaving aside the fact that I quit that job because I despised working for a bunch of thieving criminal corporate cocksuckers (alliterative filth - yay), I can think of several reasons why this would not work out.
For one, nobody can get a job in this fucking economy; let alone someone who needs a cane to walk around. No companies are hiring right now. On the contrary, they are all laying off. Even if any were hiring, they would file my application right in the shredder because I'm a walking (or limping) liability in their eyes.
The other glaring problem with that scenario is that I made all of $7.00 an hour at that job, which isn't even half of what I need to pay my bills. Even on the infinitesimal chance I could get some office job that didn't require me to lift anything, it would NEVER pay me the kind of money I'm accustomed to making. The kind of money that would pay my bills. Not even close.
But I was denied disability on the grounds that I am physically able to sit in a chair and type. Well, guess what! So can about 90% of people who are currently receiving disability! What's your answer to that?
Nothing, huh?
I've spent the last ten years having a good 20% of my hard-earned money stolen out of my paycheck (or as they call it "paying into the system") just to have these fucking cocksuckers turn me down in my time of need. Their letter even stated how they know from my medical records that my condition is severe. Just not severe enough for them to give me any of MY money back, apparently.
Well, that's great. All I have to do is limp my ass up to an office park and start filling out applications. "What's that? Experience? Well, I spent a whole summer half a decade ago checking credit scores. Why so long out of the field? Oh, I'm an EMT. Why aren't I applying for an EMT job? Well, I'm disabled. Oh, you need someone who can walk around, huh? Well the SSA says I'm too disabled to be an EMT but not disabled enough to get a red cent back that I paid into the system... oh, you're... not hiring rigt now? Well... thanks anyway."
Yeah, that'll go great. The Social Security Administration can eat shit.
Interesting post script to this story- while retrieving my medical records, they apparently spoke to two doctors who are not treating me (neither doctor they mentioned has seen me since October) and they completely failed to talk to any doctors who ARE treating me. I know this because my PCP filled out a form specifically for the SSA telling them how bad my condition is and that I am under his orders to do no work of any kind. They ignored him, the doctor who discovered my condition and diagnosed me; and went by the word of Dr. Koff who never once examined me or ordered a single diagnostic test of any kind.
Sounds to me like a predetermined denial backed up by getting reports from doctors who have nothing to do with my case/treatment.
I shouldn't have expected anything different from the American government.
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