A $10 billion federal disability program has gone seriously astray, becoming an alternative welfare system that risks harming youngsters by giving parents financial incentives to medicate their children, The Boston Globe reports.
The Supplemental Security Income Program, created by Congress in 1972 to help low-income children with severe physical disabilities including Down syndrome, is now mostly serving children with common behavioral and learning disorders, according an investigation by the Globe. Yet because children need to be disabled and medicated for their families to qualify, it encourages parents to seek prescriptions for powerful drugs that their youngsters might not need.
For many parents, it comes down to economics. In Massachusetts, for example, a parent with two kids who qualifies for welfare will get a maximum of about $600 a month. If one of those two kids is approved for the SSI program, the benefit can double.
Once families qualify, it can be hard to quit. The program comes with nearly guaranteed Medicaid coverage and a $700 check every month, leading some families to count on their children being qualified as disabled, even if their conditions improve. For teens it can be a disincentive to take a job that could end disability payments.
Federal statistics show a significant rise in the past 20 years in the number of children qualifying for the program because of mental disabilities. Of the 1.2 million low-income children whose families were enrolled in 2009, 640,000–53 percent–qualified because of mental, learning or behavioral issues, up from 8 percent in 1990. According to the Social Security Administration, the top two disorders of children in the program are Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD, and delayed speech in young children, followed by autism spectrum disorders, bipolar illness, depression, and learning problems.
“This has become the new welfare,’’ MIT economics professor David Autor said. “This is a very valuable resource to families, but you’re providing incentives for them to produce a diagnosis for their children to be part of this program, and there’s also incentives to medicate them.’’
However, many disability and mental health advocates see the program’s evolution as a victory that helps parents deal with the exhausting needs of troubled children and recognizes mental disabilities along with physical disabilities such as cerebral palsy.
“A few years ago, we never saw a bipolar diagnosis in a child; now we do,’’said David Rust, a top Social Security official who defended the agency’s handling of the SSI children’s program. “The world is changing in terms of who we serve and the kinds of conditions we see.’’
