Democratic nominee Kamala Harris speaks throughout a Univision city corridor on October 10, 2024.Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Three years in the past, after creating Lengthy Covid, 62-year-old Martha utilized for Social Safety Incapacity Insurance coverage, which supplies a modest month-to-month profit to growing older and disabled adults. Martha has no medical insurance, which prevents her from getting the medical remedy she wants, and is homeless.
On Thursday, when she requested Vice President Kamala Harris in regards to the situation at a city corridor hosted by the Spanish-language information community Univision, she nonetheless hadn’t acquired a choice.
Within the twelve-month stretch from October 2022 by means of September 2023, 30,000 folks died whereas ready for federal incapacity determinations, in line with Social Safety Commissioner Martin O’Malley. Martha requested Harris what she would do as president for folks, like herself, who’re ready for incapacity selections whereas in determined want of medical insurance.
Delays in these selections, pushed partially by understaffing and a Covid-related rise in incapacity charges, have pushed the everyday wait time from 4 months in 2019 to seven months as we speak, typically coupled with the necessity to enchantment an preliminary rejection, which might take years. The processing instances signify a mounting disaster for the greater than 1 million Individuals who apply for incapacity in a given yr.
Harris, beginning off on monitor, highlighted her current push for Lengthy Covid to be acknowledged below the Individuals with Disabilities Act. However the vp didn’t acknowledge the problem of wait instances for federal incapacity profit determinations, speaking as an alternative about how medical debt impacted credit score scores.
Harris’ push to include Lengthy Covid into the ADA is welcome. Latino individuals are the likeliest of any racial group to report having Lengthy Covid, in line with Census information; many additionally take part in SSDI, and her Univision non-answer on wait instances was eyebrow-raising.
However a Lengthy Covid–pleasant ADA doesn’t imply any change in Social Safety practices, that are separate. Securing incapacity earnings is a way more complicated, demanding course of than securing ADA lodging (which will be arduous sufficient). Separate motion is required on each—and inside Harris’ grasp, ought to she land within the White Home.
it is a very emotional city corridor. Harris takes a query from a homeless lady whose life was wrecked by lengthy covid about what she’ll do for folks like her pic.twitter.com/O65A3GJIX3
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 11, 2024
That’s to not say that Democrats have made no strikes to handle challenges round Lengthy Covid and Social Safety incapacity delays. In August, a Senate group together with Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Vir.), Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Sen Tammy Duckworth (D-Ailing.), and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Ver.) despatched O’Malley a letter asking an identical query: what was the Social Safety Administration doing to handle the obstacles that candidates with Lengthy Covid face? They’ve but to obtain a response—no less than publicly.
