Columns/Opinion, Letters to the Editor

No guarantee still more won’t fall through cracks

by Submitted to The Dominion Post

Richard Cohen, Morgantown
I feel compelled to ask one fundamental question in response to the May 28 letter to the editor entitled “If you’re able to work, why must taxpayers feed you?”
I question why the writer appears so certain that the proposed changes to the food stamp program will ensure that all the people who are not able to work will be given the food they need and deserve?
In over 30 years of working as a lawyer, I have seen too many people fall through the cracks and be denied benefits to believe that new restrictions will recognize and feed the disabled. I am not alone.
Those of us who have worked in the area of law that deals with disability benefits, whether food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, Social Security Disability, disability insurance or veterans benefits, have seen that there are too many people who are truly unable to work who are denied benefits to which they are entitled. For example, ask any veteran how difficult it is to convince the Department of Veterans Affairs of his or her disability.
It follows that one glaring problem with the administration’s attempt to justify cutting food stamp benefits is the fact that injured and ill people will not necessarily get a fair determination of their inability to perform work.
Treating doctors are frequently unable or unwilling to devote the time to filling out the necessary paperwork. Moreover, because our country lacks universal health care, those filing for food stamps frequently do not have access to health care and are therefore unable to prove their disability by submitting an unbiased assessment of their capabilities.
You do not need to study your religious teachings to conclude that a nation, a people, is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable. An observer might conclude that it is morally and ethically wrong for a country to give large tax cuts to corporations and to the wealthiest citizens and then to try to save money by making it more difficult for poor disabled people to qualify for food benefits.