He held a cane in his right hand as he came to the microphone at the Springs retirement community, and he seemed a bit abashed to be telling his Social Security story to a crowd of about 200.
“I thought I was going to be talking to Sen. Baucus and four or five others,” Schaff said, drawing a warm laugh from the crowd.
Attendees thought they would hear from the country’s top Social Security official, Commissioner Michael Astrue, but he got stuck in Arkansas and didn’t even make the meeting.
His replacement, Nancy Berryhill, the SSA’s regional commissioner in Denver, filled in for her boss, ably explaining why the system is so slow responding to Social Security disability requests. Often those cases take more than three years or more to resolve, she said.
“We’re making improvements all the time, but there are still problems,” Berryhill said.
Then Duane Schaff stood up and gave the problem a human face. Years ago, Schaff started having trouble with arthritis. Although it disabled him enough to where he could no longer do his job, he opted not to apply for a disability from Social Security.
“I looked at disability as another form of welfare," Schaff said.
And he didn’t want that. But at the same time, he applied for benefits from the Veterans Administration. He’d served two tours in Vietnam, but the VA denied him on a technicality.
With nowhere left to turn, Schaff cashed in his retirement, thinking he could manage it himself. He was wrong, losing all his money.
A friend finally talked him into applying for a disability payment, arguing that the payment amounted to money he’d already paid into the Social Security system.
Not surprisingly, he was denied. Thus began a process that took three years, a lawyer, mountains of paperwork and heartache.
With help from attorney Susan Gobbs, who works with the People’s Law Center and handles only Social Security cases, Schaff finally prevailed.
That was heartening, he said, but the experience was not.
“I had the intestinal fortitude to go on,” he said. “... How many people are denied and do nothing else?”
Unfortunately, too many.
“Some people die before their applications are processed,” Baucus noted.
Charles Drinville isn’t dead, but he’s beyond frustrated.
His son, Calvin, suffered a case of bacterial meningitis 10 years ago, enduring days-long fever over 106 degrees. His disability is equilibrium; he just doesn’t have much.
Calvin stood Thursday while speaking to a reporter and nearly fell into his parents’ laps.
The Drinvilles took up their son’s case, applying for a disability payment. But that was 10 years and four lawyers ago. They’re still fighting for Calvin’s disability.
“He does what he can to help us, but it’s been hard,” Charles said.
The problem, Susan Gobbs said, isn’t that Social Security officials are hard-hearted and cheap. They’re just chronically understaffed and underfunded.
Regional commissioner Berryhill pointed with pride to the agency’s efforts to develop an Internet presence. Gobbs said that’s fine as far as it goes.
“What we really need is boots on the ground, somebody that people can talk to,” she said.
Gobbs’ law office is sort of like the SSA, with too few attorneys and way too many clients.
That said, Montana is better off than other states, with appealed cases being reviewed by an administrative law judge more quickly, Gobbs said.
“What we need are people who can answer the phones and communicate with people,” she said.
The problem has the potential to grow much worse in the coming decades, as baby boomers flood the Social Security system.
Berryhill said the country now has 35 million people over the age of 65. By 2030, that number will double.
Although some expressed doubt about the long-term viability of Social Security, Baucus said the system will soldier on.
“Social Security will be here,” he said. “I have no doubt about that.”
Whether it will work better than it does now is still open to debate.
“We’re working hard and doing better, but we still have a long way to go,” Berryhill said.
Reporter Michael Moore can be reached at 523-5252 or at mmoore@missoulian.com.
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