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Pain patients left in anguish by doctors 'terrified' of opioid addiction, despite CDC change

July 1, 2019

Chronic pain sufferers 'between a rock and a hard place' State regulators, health insurers and even disability administrators have cited the federal guidelines to justify policies that limit pain pill prescriptions. Last month, the CDC clarified its position, saying the response to the opioid crisis went too far. In a New England Journal of Medicine editorial, a panel of experts cited examples such as inflexible thresholds on dosages, abrupt tapering and misapplication of the guidelines for…

Insult to injury: Workers’ compensation isn’t working in New York

June 7, 2019

While the city contemplates demanding employers provide paid vacation days and other new guarantees for workers toward the bottom of the pay and power scale, a basic piece of the safety net is frayed: the workers’ compensation system meant to support people who get hurt on the job, and to help their families get by when a breadwinner is killed. Workers’ comp is a private system with benefits set by the state. Employers buy the insurance, which then pays out when an employee sustains an injury…

Another article, this time from WorkCompCentral.com denoting the disparities in the NYS Workers' Compensation system

June 5, 2019

A new study finds that that workers' compensation benefits are surprisingly low in New York, a state known for its progressive policies and high cost of living. Meanwhile, workplace fatalities have spiked and insurance company profits ...

Time for a Real Look at How the New York State Workers' Compensation System Treats Workers

June 4, 2019

A report by James A. Parrott and Nicholas B. Martin, Center for New York City Affairs New York was the first state to adopt workers’ compensation and was once a national leader in safeguarding the interests of workers injured on the job. However, worker protections under New York’s workers’ comp system have seriously eroded over the years as legislative and administrative changes have focused on curtailing benefits rather than minimizing injuries, adequately compensating injured workers,…

An audit of Social Security found low-income beneficiaries were underpaid

January 25, 2019

By Philip Moeller Low-income people receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments are supposed to automatically be switched over to “regular” Social Security retirement benefits once they turn 62 years old. The logic here is that the government should not be paying out SSI benefits if someone could otherwise receive their normal Social Security benefits, which they have already earned. I doubt this provision is well known by SSI recipients and, as evidenced by a report recently…