HEALTH CARE: SSDI waiting game

By Tim Louis Macaluso on July 22, 2008

The hiring of more judges will not relieve the horrendous backlog of claims for Social Security Disability Insurance, advocates say |The Buffalo office, which serves Rochester, continues to have one of the longest delay times in the country - 691 days before a case goes to a judge. | Representative Louise Slaughter helped get $9.7 billion to hire as many as 133 new judges, including two for a new Rochester satellite office. Slaughter and Senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton pressured the SSDI administration to hire the two Rochester judges. | But critics say the added judges will do little to speed things up. | "When you consider the number of judges who have left yearly, the additional judges only amount to a net gain of 12 nationwide," says Linda Fullerton, a local SSDI advocate. | The Rochester judges won't hear cases until sometime next year due to training, says Rick Warsinskey, former president of the National Council of Social Security Managers. | "We're really looking at 2012 to 2013 before the Buffalo-Rochester area gets any relief," he says. "Applicants will continue to lose everything, even get sick and die, before they receive benefits."