The New York Times has been reporting a story about retired workers from the Long Island Railroad claiming and receiving disability benefits at a 97 per cent rate. In many cases the workers retire early without any clear sign of a disability and then file disability claims that allow them to take home fat six figure retirement salaries.
Graft of this kind is not new. But what interests me is the 97 per cent rate of successful disability claims because to my way of thinking this indicates that there’s tremendous collusion between the railroad union, the doctors who work for the railroad, the corporate executives who move the paperwork, and the federal government which pays out the claims. “Look!” I say to myself, “Look! Disability benefits can be efficiently provided in this nation!” While thousands of disabled war veterans struggle to get rehabilitation, education money, wheelchairs and prostheses of all kinds, look! It’s possible to move things right along without a hitch!
And so of course my suggestion is to take the money from the L.I.R.R.’s phoney disabled retirees who are playing golf and driving imported automobiles and simply transfer it to veterans. The L.I.R.R. and the Federal Railroad Retirement Agency or whatever its called have already proven that paper work just gets in the way of rapid delivery.
Of course you should know by the by that I’m not joking. There are wounded warriors in this nation whose very lives hang in the balance.
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 