Here are some follow-up letters to the New York Times article I profiled last week, about the collapse of the Social Security Administration's disability claims division.

(The original article is Disability Cases Last Longer as Backlog Rises, by Erik Eckholm. Make sure you click the related graphic illustrating the growing backlog, in the left margin. I would print it here, but it's copyrighted.

Here is a follow-up editorial urging reform and full funding: Disabled, and Waiting for Justice.)

My favorite one is by David Levner of Queens. Some people don't mince words.

My experience with Social Security, in attempting to represent my mother, has convinced me that this bureaucracy was designed by people who studied Kafka’s novels. And that’s no accident.

One of their goals is to save money by denying claims. But the more important goal clearly is to weaken public support for the program so that it can be killed or emasculated in the future — since it is now politically sacred.

Ironically, my mother campaigned for a Social Security system in the 1920s, when it was a radical idea. Apparently, some people still think it is too radical.

Here are more samples of the outpouring of disgust at this news from all across the Internet: http://www.blogrunner.com/snapshot/D/4/8/disability_cases_last_far_longer_as_backlog_rises/

Get out there and vote, people.

Lots of coverage this week on the huge backlog of disability claims that's mushroomed the past few years at Social Security.

This isn't just waiting in line for a Led Zeppelin ticket. Already desperate, these people are forced to wait months and years, while their situations worsen.

On the news site referenced below, Sarah Patterson of Portland, Oregon, comments, "As an attorney who has represented people in Social Security denials for 25 years, I can say that it has never been this bad."

The tragic part of it all is that most of them wind up approved for coverage -- but by that time they are already destitute.

[D]uring the long wait, their conditions may worsen and their lives often fall apart. More and more people have lost their homes, declared bankruptcy or even died while awaiting an appeals hearing. [See the linked articles below.]

Oh, that's right, then they can file for Medicaid. Got it!

This has all developed in eight years. It stems from a refusal to adequately staff these offices. Why? Because tough-sounding politicians suddenly remember their budget-cutting savvy when it affects the poorest and most helpless in our society ... although in all other things they treat money as water: drink up, me hearties!

"Disability Cases Last Longer as Backlog Rises" by Erik Eckholm, New York Times, December 10, 2007.

"Disabled, and Waiting for Justice," New York Times Editorial, December 11, 2007.

I've written that the only ones to pay for these wars and profligate spending are the military and their families, and the poor and disabled. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour already smashed down on Medicaid and other programs that serviced the poorest in that poor state.

This instance, is another taste of it.