By Ken AlltuckerUSAToday.com When Aimee Blou heard the lupus drug she has relied on for more than a decade promoted as a coronavirus antidote, she visited her pharmacist. The 40-year-old woman from Stockton, California, was told the decades-old antimalarial drug commonly prescribed for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis was in short supply. She Read more…
The Dworkin Report Scott speaks with patient advocate Peter Morley, who is a lupus patient taking the drug that Donald Trump is selling to the public at large as a coronavirus medication without any scientific data whatsoever, for which he was recently featured in Rolling Stone magazine. Morley is literally Read more…
I trust ALJs to decide which COVID-19 patients will be eligible for Social Security disability income.
Unfortunately, the Trump administration wants to put its thumb on the process through Executive Order 13843, which allows the Social Security Administration to discard the merit system for picking ALJs and instead allows it to choose any attorney with a license to make important disability decisions.
A distinguished group of lawmakers in the U.S. House and Senate are pushing back against this power grab by supporting the ALJ Competitive Service Restoration Act; it would preserve due-process protections for the American public by restoring the fair and unbiased administered hiring process for ALJs.
As Congress debates future recovery and stimulus bills, it should recognize that not every COVID-19 patient will be able to return to the workforce. These patients have had to overcome a lack of treatments, ventilators and masks. The least we can do for them is to protect the disability system that we know works.
Morley is a patient advocate based in New York City; he has testified numerous times before congressional committees regarding patient rights and needs.