The plaza
del pueblo in Río
Piedras was quite lovely, especially at that hour, with the sun just coming up.
There were large mahogany trees, which have a tantalizing scent when they
flower in May and June. There were always stray dogs and cats, banana kwits,
and the Greater Caribbean Grackle, which in mating season has a call identical
to the opening notes of Beethoven’s Fifth. So I would sit, wait for the second
bus to arrive, and observe the crowd.
There would
be about fifty or a hundred, especially later, around six or seven, when the
doors to the Social
Security Administration offices would open; an employee would slip out and
hand out the numbers of those who would be seen.
It was
puzzling, but I was in no mood in those days to give it much thought; I had a
job to get to, and an aging parent to attend to.
Well, now I
know—I was witnessing the biggest case of Social Security fraud in the United
States.
How big?
Well, there were 75 people arrested yesterday—all of them perfectly capable of
trotting into the processing area, and all of them—if The New Day is to be trusted—acting like star
actors. Here’s
ABC News:
Rodriguez
said agents took videos of people that belied their claimed ailments. She said
one who claimed back problems was a gym owner who posted a picture of himself
on Facebook lifting a girl above his head.
Well,
of course he had a back problem! Lifting girls above your head would
give anybody a back problem! Anyone can see that!
Well,
among the 75 people arrested were two shrinks (not, I’m happy to clarify, my
own) and a fisiatra or a physiatrist (the island is full them, though I never met
one in the States—the physiatrist is basically a rehab doctor…). Then there was
also the ex-employee of the Social Security Administration, who very helpfully
guided the abled to those doctors who could disable them. And then—hey, great
customer service here—“facilitated” the process of getting that pesky paperwork
attended to.
How
well did they do?
Según
la investigación, el principal gestor del fraude fue un exempleado del Seguro
Social, identificado como Samuel Torres Crespo, quien recibió alrededor de $3.4
millones al gestionar solicitudes de seguro de incapacidad basadas en supuesta
información falsa.
Yup, that’s The
New Day reporting
that Samuel Torres Crespo, an ex-employee of Social Security, got 3.4 million
bucks for helping in the disabling process. His cut? 25% of the amount
received. And the doctors? They took from $150 to $500 for their part in the
scheme.
Well, it was
good while it lasted. Some families were raking in $5000 monthly—that $60,000
annual salary buys a lot of bling-bling.
And the
overall total? Upwards of 35 million dollars.
Nor is this
over—the sub director of the federal district attorney states that this is the
first of many.
In fact,
disability seems to be winning in the race against ability, at least on the
island. Caribbean Business,
in an article
tellingly titled “Disability Island”, reports that “Social
Security data reveals that about four times as many working-age Puerto Rico
residents receive disability income than those on the U.S. mainland.” We have 1
million working people on an island of 3.7 million. We also have over 200,000
disabled people not working—for a rate of 17.7% of disabled workers (some of
the 200,000 disabled presumably being older or younger than working age). In
the States, the rate is 10.3%.
Not
all of these are frauds, of course, but the situation was so alarming that the
Social Security Administration decided to move its review center from the
island to Baltimore. Oh, and they’ve opened a special office to investigate
fraud on the island. And of the top ten zip codes for SSA fraud? Nine
of them are in Puerto Rico.
Well,
I would see them, wonder about them, and then get on the bus, trot up the
stairs and—quite frequently—help Leida up the stairs. She was tall and thin,
and the first time I saw her, I couldn’t believe she could walk. Nor was it,
truly, a walk—it was a lurching, swinging prelude to a fall. She may have had
braces, those many years ago; she has never not had a walker. She
arrived each morning in a special car: not having the use of her feet, she had
to do everything with her hands. My “job,” when we coincided those mornings,
was to open the trunk, get out the walker, and watch in never-diminished terror
as Leida grabbed the railing of the six steps up to the lobby and hauled
herself swaying up the stairs.
She
was unfailingly cheerful; she had been dealt a rotten hand in life, and in the
only remark that in a decade of knowing her she had ever made about her
condition, she confided that a video shown at a meeting of disabled kids had
made her cry. It made her remember her childhood, with its many
hospitalizations and surgeries.
She
had the nobility that a few people acquire through suffering. She knew very
well that a supervisor’s annoyed look or an intemperate email didn’t deserve a
place in her day, and she didn’t let them in, much less insert them into other
people’s day. As much as she had struggled, she would have scorned to complain.
And while the very substantial ladies of Human Resources took the elevator to
the second floor, Leida took the stairs.
I
consider myself Puerto Rican, though by adoption; I’m proud to be Puerto Rican,
and the Puerto Ricans who work work harder than many other people in many other
places. But in my classes at Wal-Mart, there was a sure theme that would revive
any sputtering class: el mantengo.
It’s
the philosophy of the kept, the entitled, the petty cheats who play the system,
don’t work, and receive every benefit—from a free apartment to (almost) free
electricity to free food to free…you get the picture. And the rest of us? Pendej….
(a very
vulgar word that—wonderfully—actually means a hair on the human vulva.
Meaning—somebody else is having all the fun, and you’re just standing around watching…)
No,
I didn’t complete that pendej—though every Puerto Rican will know it. As they
will the term that I can complete….
Vergüenza
ajena.
