Social Security expands compassionate allowances

Most people think of Social Security as a program that helps retirees pay their bills, but there is another important aspect to it; disability income. The SSA pays out benefits to those who have earned enough to be eligible for Social Security but are not yet old enough to claim it, when they can't work for a year or more due to a physical or mental condition.

Unfortunately, the program has been under fire for quite a while due to the backlog in claims resulting in months and months of agonizing waiting for claimants. This is why your TV carries so many ads for 'Disability Advocates'; they make their living off of this government inefficiency.

To address this problem, the SSA came up with a four-step process in 2007, one of which is the compassionate allowance conditions list. This is essentially a list of maladies that are fast-tracked through the system, avoiding the long delays and common rejections of the initial application. Now, this list of 50 maladies has been expanded by another 38 maladies. This is particularly good news to those suffering from Cri du Chat Syndrome, Leigh's Disease, Maple Syrup Urine Disease, or Zellweger Syndrome.

The new additions to the compassionate allowance list are:

1. Alstrom Syndrome
2. Amegakaryocytic Thrombocytopenia
3. Ataxia Spinocerebellar
4. Ataxia Telangiectasia
5. Batten Disease
6. Bilateral Retinoblastoma
7. Cri du Chat Syndrome
8. Degos Disease
9. Early-Onset Alzheimer's Disease
10. Edwards Syndrome
11. Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva
12. Fukuyama Congenital Muscular Dystrophy
13. Glutaric Acidemia Type II
14. Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), Familial Type
15. Hurler Syndrome, Type IH
16. Hunter Syndrome, Type II
17. Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis
18. Junctional Epidermolysis Bullosa, Lethal Type
19. Late Infantile Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinoses
20. Leigh's Disease
21. Maple Syrup Urine Disease
22. Merosin Deficient Congenital Muscular Dystrophy
23. Mixed Dementia
24. Mucosal Malignant Melanoma
25. Neonatal Adrenoleukodystrophy
26. Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinoses, Infantile Type
27. Niemann-Pick Type C
28. Patau Syndrome
29. Primary Progressive Aphasia
30. Progressive Multifocal Leukoencephalopathy
31. Sanfilippo Syndrome
32. Subacute Sclerosis Panencephalitis
33. Tay Sachs Disease
34. Thanatophoric Dysplasia, Type 1
35. Ullrich Congenital Muscular Dystrophy
36. Walker Warburg Syndrome
37. Wolman Disease
38. Zellweger Syndrome

The original 50 compassionate allowance maladies are:

1. Acute Leukemia
2. Adrenal Cancer - with distant metastases or inoperable, unresectable or recurrent
3. Alexander Disease (ALX) - Neonatal and Infantile
4. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)
5. Anaplastic Adrenal Cancer
6. Astrocytoma
7. Bladder Cancer - with distant metastases or inoperable or unresectable
8. Bone Cancer - with distant metastases or inoperable or unresectable
9. Breast Cancer - with distant metastases or inoperable or unresectable
10. Canavan Disease (CD)
11. Cerebro Oculo Facio Skeletal (COFS) Syndrome
12. Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML) - Blast Phase
13. Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) - Adult
14. Ependymoblastoma (Child Brain Tumor)
15. Esophageal Cancer
16. Farber's Disease (FD) - Infantile
17. Friedreichs Ataxia (FRDA)
18. Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD), Picks Disease -Type A - Adult
19. Gallbladder Cancer
20. Gaucher Disease (GD) - Type 2
21. Glioblastoma Multiforme (Brain Tumor)
22. Head and Neck Cancers - with distant metastasis or inoperable or uresectable
23. Infantile Neuroaxonal Dystrophy (INAD)
24. Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC)
25. Kidney Cancer - inoperable or unresectable
26. Krabbe Disease (KD) - Infantile
27. Large Intestine Cancer - with distant metastasis or inoperable, unresectable or recurrent
28. Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome (LNS)
29. Liver Cancer
30. Mantle Cell Lymphoma (MCL)
31. Metachromatic Leukodystrophy (MLD) - Late Infantile
32. Niemann-Pick Disease (NPD) - Type A
33. Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer - with metastases to or beyond the hilar nodes or inoperable, unresectable or recurrent
34. Ornithine Transcarbamylase (OTC) Deficiency
35. Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) - Type II
36. Ovarian Cancer - with distant metastases or inoperable or unresectable
37. Pancreatic Cancer
38. Peritoneal Mesothelioma
39. Pleural Mesothelioma
40. Pompe Disease - Infantile
41. Rett (RTT) Syndrome
42. Salivary Tumors
43. Sandhoff Disease
44. Small Cell Cancer (of the Large Intestine, Ovary, Prostate, or Uterus)
45. Small Cell Lung Cancer
46. Small Intestine Cancer - with distant metastases or inoperable, unresectable or recurrent
47. Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) - Types 0 And 1
48. Stomach Cancer - with distant metastases or inoperable, unresectable or recurrent
49. Thyroid Cancer
50. Ureter Cancer - with distant metastases or inoperable, unresectable or recurrent