This link has been bookmarked by 1 people . It was first bookmarked on 22 Sep 2008, by someone privately.
-
22 Sep 08
-
“How is it that somebody is occupationally disabled the day after he retires when he wasn’t occupationally disabled the day before he retired?” asked Gary Dellaverson, chief financial officer for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the railroad’s parent.
-
. Without the political support needed to weather a strike, management has been unwilling to press for the removal of costly work rules, according to former management and union officials. The railroad also has no authority to intervene in federal disability cases.
-
A worker must be incapable of any gainful employment to be classified as disabled by Social Security. But rail workers can get disability payments even if they can perform other jobs — just not their regular railroad jobs. This provision, enacted in 1946, was based on the view that rail workers had especially hazardous jobs involving skills not easily transferred to other occupations.
-
“As we get older, we accumulate all kinds of abnormalities on M.R.I.’s,” Dr. McLellan said. “You can’t use an M.R.I. to say, ‘This person must have really bad back pain and therefore must be disabled.’ It is extremely common to have disc bulge and disc degeneration and disc herniation and have no symptoms whatsoever.”
He said most people with a herniated disc recover within 6 to 12 weeks “without any intervention except time.”
-
In each year since 2000, between 93 percent and 97 percent of employees over 50 who retired with 20 years of service also received disability payments.
-
Would you like to comment?
Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.