Matters of Opinion

Today's Buffalo News lead editorial, "Fix Social Security delays," praises Rep. Brian Higgins and Sen. Hillary Clinton for pushing the Social Security Administration to attack the two-year backlog of disability appeals now before the Buffalo-area office.
People are going broke, being evicted, even dying, waiting for the SSA to figure out that people who have been wrongly denied the benefits they paid for are really in need.

Elsewhere:
* The New York Times reports that one major cause of the bottleneck is that people who bought disability insurance from private carriers are being told they cannot collect on those policies unless they press to also get on Social Security disability -- even if they are sure they don't really qualify. So much for the idea of relying on private sector alternatives to public programs.
* The News Journal of Wilmington, Delaware, tells them to cut it out.
* A former claims reviewer in Illinois tells The Times in a a letter that many poor people apply for Social Security disability because it is the only way they can get medical care.
* The Dallas Morning News reports on a woman whose experience has convinced her that "Social Security has flunked its first big test with baby boomers."
* The Kansas City Star editorializes on the disability backlog: "Social Security is victimizing large numbers of people by delaying their disability payments or refusing to pay them at all. It’s an outrage."
* The Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester reports on a pair of one-time SSA employees who opened their own business helping people negotiate the paperwork maze they used to operate.
* And, as Paul Harvey probably still says, you can run but you can't hide. The Irish Times reports that more than half of Irish citizens who are initially denied their "invalidity pension" win on appeal.

--George Pyle/Editorial Writer