Pain (42 page)

10
. For Nixon era expansion and consolidation, see James Sparrow,
Warfare State: World War II Americans and the Age of Big Government
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); for cost and recipient statistics, see Robert Rubinson, “Government Benefits: Social Security Disability, 1987,” Annual Survey of American Law (June 1988): 195, 196; for changes in SSDI contributors and recipients, see Rodgers, “Subjective Pain Testimony,” 174.

11
. “Don't Disable Social Security,”
New York Times
, July 19, 1979, A18.

12
. For “the largest computer system …,” see Grayson Mitchell, “Computer to Aid Welfare Policing,”
Los Angeles Times
, May 6, 1979, SC1; in terms of welfare program policing, even before Reagan's electoral victory, Carter himself had “shifted uneasily towards deregulation (of airlines and trucking) as a partial solution to the crisis of stagflation.” David Harvey,
A Brief History of Neoliberalism
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 22, 23.

13
. Mark I. Whitman, “Carter, a Reluctant Radical,”
Baltimore Sun
, September 12, 1980, A17.

14
. “Modest Social Security Reform,”
Chicago Tribune
, July 25, 1979, A2.

15
. “Social Security Disability Amendments of 1980: Statement on Signing H.R. 3236 into Law, June 9, 1980,”
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Jimmy Carter, 1980–1981
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1980–1981), 2:1062.

16
. For “Governor Reagan's first …,” “Medicare and Social Security,” October 31, 1980,
Public Papers: Carter
, 3:2578; for “I oppose cutting back …” and “I am proud to stand for …,” 3:2579. Writing in the wake of the election, Reagan's adviser David Gergen noted of Southern Protestants, “This key vote abandoned Jimmy Carter in large numbers … I urge that if President Reagan makes a trip outside Washington in the first months of his Administration that the trip be to the deep South.” “First 90 Days Project, 1980” December 29, 1980, memorandum t: Dave Gergen from Rich Williamson regarding thoughts on the first 90 days, in MC197, box 66, folder 6, p. 19, James A. Baker III Papers, RBSC Mudd Library, Princeton University.

17
. For “there is the program …,” see “The President's New Conference, May 13, 1982,”
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Ronald Reagan, 1981–1989
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1981–1989), 1:625; for Reagan's changes to the programs and conservative ascendancy, see Harvey,
Brief History of Neoliberalism
.

18
. “Interview with the President, Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session with a Group of Out-of-Town Editors, October 5, 1981,”
Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents
17, no. 41 (Monday, October 12, 1981): 1094.

19
. Simon Nelson Patten,
The Development of English Thought
(New York: MacMillan, 1899); and E. K. Hunt, “Simon N. Patten's Contributions to Economics,”
Journal of Economic Issues
4 (December 1970): 38–55; on the origins of the disability provision in Social Security, see Social Security Administration, “Vote Tallies,”
Social Security
,
www.ssa.gov/history/tally56.html
; see also James Sparrow,
Warfare State
.

20
. Steven Brena, ed.,
Chronic Pain: America's Hidden Epidemic
(New York: Antheneum, 1978).

21
. For “chronic pain is often …,” see S. F. Brena, S. L. Chapman, and R. Decker, “Chronic Pain as Learned Experience: Emory University Pain Control Center,”
NIDA Research Monographs
36 (May 1981): 76–83; for medical proof of pain, see discussions of medical-only determination, Collection: Anderson, Martin files, CFOA 89, box 5, folder: Social Security (6 and 8 of 20), Ronald Reagan Library.

22
. On learned helplessness, see Martin Seligman, “Learned Helplessness,”
Annual Review of Medicine
23 (1972): 407–12; Martin Seligman,
Helplessness: On Depression, Development, and Death
(San Francisco: Freeman, 1975); Lyn Y. Abramson, Martin E. P. Seligman, and John D. Teasdale, “Learned Helplessness in Humans: Critique and Reformulation,”
Journal of Abnormal Psychology
87 (1978): 49–74; Stanley L. Chapman and Steven F. Brena, “Learned Helplessness and Responses to Nerve Blocks in Chronic Low Back Pain Patients,”
Pain
14 (1982): 355–64; Adele Thomas, “Learned Helplessness and Expectancy Factors: Implications for Research in Learning Disabilities,”
Review of Education Research
49 (Spring 1979): 208–21; for pain sufferer and disability claims, see Chapman and Brena, “Learned Helplessness and Responses to Nerve Blocks.”

23
. For “nobody likes welfare …,” see Katz,
In the Shadow of the Poorhouse
, 1. See also Michael Katz,
The Undeserving Poor: From the War of Poverty to the War on Welfare
(New York: Pantheon, 1989); for compassion as a misguided liberal construct, see Marvin Olasky,
The Tragedy of American Compassion
(Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 1992); for “malingering may be …,” see Rodgers, “Subjective Pain Testimony,” 178.

24
. For changes to disability rolls, see “U.S. Gets Tough with Disabled,”
Washington Post
, September 7, 1982, A1; for “negative fallout …,” see May 28, 1981, memo from pollster Richard B. Wirthin to Ed Meese, Jim Baker, and Mike Deaver, folder 13 of 20, Anderson, Ronald Reagan Archives, Loma Linda, CA.

25
. For legal appeals, see Robert Pear, “Dispute Continues on Aid to Disabled,”
New York Times
, August 12, 1984, 26; for “incorrect denials …,” see Fair, 885 F.2d, p. 602, quoted in Rodgers, “Subjective Pain Testimony,” 191.

26
. See Laura Kalman,
The Strange Career of Legal Liberalism
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), 78; see also Steven M. Teles,
The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement: The Battle for Control of the Law
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008); for “people involved with …,” see Richard Posner, “The Economic Approach to Law,” Texas Law Review 53 (1975): 761–65; for social security cases as tests, see Zaiser, “Proving Disabling Pain.”

27
. For changing environment for disabled, see Robin Herman, “Easing of U.S. Rules on Aid for Disabled Is Sought,”
New York Times
, February 8, 1982, B2; for “an ‘in house' ruling,” and “there must be …,” see Rodgers, “Subjective Pain Testimony,” 194; For “many Congressmen say …,” see Margaret Engel, “U.S. Gets Tough With Disabled,”
Washington Post
, September 7, 1982, A1.

28
. For “soften the image,” see Robert Pear, “Softening Some Images, If Not Policies,”
New York Times
, June 26, 1983, E4; Robert Pear, “Reagan Aide Hails Shift on Disability,”
New York Times
, June 8, 1983, A17; for “had no idea …” and “number of people exempted …,” see Baroody, Michael E., Collection, box 2, folder: Heckler / Women's Op-Ed, HHS news statement, June 1983; Op-Ed—June 7, 1983, “Social Security Disability Review Reform,” Ronald Reagan Library.

29
. For “a state of legal confusion …,” and on disability lawsuits clogging courts see Pear, “Dispute Continues on Aid to Disabled”; on purged claimants, see Margaret Shapiro and Spencer Rich, “Hill Alters Rules for Disability,”
Washington Post
, September 20, 1984, A1. As one judge said, “For some unexplained reason, the Secretary insists upon ignoring this court's statements” that she must consider subjective complaints of pain, even if they are not fully corroborated by objective medical evidence. Quoted in Robert Pear, “U.S. Flouts Courts in Determination of Benefit Claims,”
New York Times
, May 13, 1984, 1.

30
. On purging the rolls, see Robert Pear, “Reagan Reported Prepared to Stop Cuts in Disability,”
New York Times
, March 24, 1984, 1. David Lauter, “Social Security's Legal Tactics Hit by 9th Circuit,”
National Law Journal
(March 12, 1984): 8; for “the huge SSDI program …” and “malingerer hunters,” see Charles Lane, “A Disability Primer,”
New Republic
, August 12/19, 1985, 18–20; see also Milton Coleman, “Mondale Carries Coals of Compassion to Boston's Castle of Liberalism,”
Washington Post
, November 3, 1984, A7; Milton Coleman and David Broder, “‘Fairness' Issue Loses Potency,”
Washington Post
, October 7, 1984, 1; for “heartless” and quote from Heckler on hardship, see “Social Security Bills Stalled in Congress,”
Baltimore Sun
, August 12, 1984, 6A.

31
. “1984 Presidential Debate between the President Reagan and Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale,” October 7, 1984,
Weekly Compilation of Presidential Document
s 20, no. 41 (Monday, October 15, 1984): 1457–58.

32
. “Ronald Reagan TV Ad: ‘It's Morning in America Again,'” YouTube video, posted by Andre Morgado, n.d.,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU-IBF8nwSY
.

33
. Of course, these issues were not entirely new to the post–World War II era. For scholarship on the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century politics of pain, labor, and compensation, see Barbara Welke,
Law and the Border of Belonging in the Long Nineteenth Century United States
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); and Barbara Welke,
Recasting American Liberty: Gender, Race, Law, and the Railroad Revolution, 1865–1920
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); for disability assessment system, see David A. Hyman, “Health Care Fraud and Abuse: Market Change, Social Norms, and the Trust ‘Reposed in the Workmen,'”
Journal of Legal Studies
30 (June 2001): 531–67.

34
. For “the federal courts …,” see Allan Goldhammer and Susan Bloom, “Recent Changes in the Assessment of Pain in Disability Claims Before the Social Security Administration,” 3 Soc. Sec. Rep. Serv. 1119
West's Social Security Reporting Service
January, 1984; for “would rest solely …,” see Peter Ferrara, Office of Policy Development Memo, 1981. Ronald Reagan Archives, Loma Linda, CA; Carter thanked J. J. Pickle for his work on H.R. 3236. “Social Security Disability Amendments of 1980: Statement on Signing H.R. 3236 Into Law, June 9, 1980,”
Public Papers: Carter
, 2:1062; for “Section 205 …” and “the administration proposal …,” see Eric Hempel, Memorandum for Martin Anderson and Ed Gray, subject: differences between Congressman Pickle's and the administration's Social Security proposals,” May 13, 1981, Social Security Administration file, Ronald Reagan Library. See also “Statement of Honorable J. J. Pickle (D, Texas), chairman of the Subcommittee on Social Security, House Committee on Ways and Means, at meeting of the Social Security Subcommittee, Wednesday, March 25, 1981, draft committee print, Sec. 206, Evaluation of Pain, Ronald Reagan Papers; for “several billions dollars …,” see “Statement on Signing a Bill Amending the Social Security Disability Insurance System, January 12, 1983,” “H.R. 7093 is Public Law 97–455, approved January 12,”
Public Papers: Reagan
, 24:39.

35
. On the complicated struggle, see Charles Lane, “A Disability Primer,”
New Republic
, August 12, 1985, 19; for “the secretary is not …,” see Miranda v. Richardson 514 F.2d 996 (1st Cir., April 14, 1975) (75 Ford Administration); on Reagan's combative approach, a later critique of this policy appears in the
National Law Journal
: “Non-Acquiescence,” editorial,
National Law Journal
(June 17, 1985): 14; on nonacquiescence, see David Hedge,
Governance and the Changing American States
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998).

36
. For “they will say …,” see “Courts in Conflict,”
Los Angeles Times
, December 2, 1980, C10; for “attacked liberal judges …,” see William Endicott,
“Meese Hits Liberal Judges, Would End Insanity Pleas,”
Los Angeles Times
, April 16, 1981, 1; Jack Nelson, “No. 2 Man: Ed Meese: He, Reagan Think Alike,”
Los Angeles Times
, June 14, 1981, 1; for the concern of Reagan supporters, see Rodgers, “Subjective Pain Testimony,” 195.

37
. Robert Pear, “New York and Other States Defy U.S. Rules for Disability Benefits,”
New York Times
, September 12, 1983, A1. As the article also noted, “Over three months, the Governors of New York, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Arkansas, Kansas, West Virginia, and other states have challenged the Reagan Administration's restrictive interpretation of the law.”

38
. For “pain is an …,” see Rodgers, “Subjective Pain Testimony,” 198; for “if the regional courts …,” 198–99; for Senate bill discussion and dispute within government, see Pear, “Dispute Continues on Aid to Disabled.”

39
. On patients like Polaski and their influence on health policy, particularly amid Reagan-era activism and calls for both fiscal restraint and patient's rights, see Beatrix Hoffman, Nancy Tomes, Rachel Grob, and Mark Schlesinger, eds.,
Patients as Policy Actors
(New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2011); for “was not supported …,” see Polaski v. Heckler 751 F.2d 943 (8th Cir., 1984) Minnesota; for “directly and flagrantly,” as well as other details of the Polaski case, see Polaski v. Heckler, 585 F. Supp. 1004, 1013 (D. Minn., 1984); “Judge Orders Benefits Paid,”
Washington Post
, April 28, 1984, A12; “HHS Gets Order to Mail Disability Checks,”
Washington Post
, July 24, 1984, A13; Edward A. Gargan, “Delay in Restoring Benefits Said to Hurt Disabled,”
New York Times
, August 26, 1984, 42; for “state of lawlessness,” see “Judge Orders Benefits Paid,”
Washington Post
, April 28, 1984, A12; see also “HHS Gets Order to Mail Disability Checks,”
Washington Post
, July 24, 1984, A13; Edward A. Gargan, “Delay in Restoring Benefits said to Hurt Disabled,”
New York Times
, August 26, 1984, 42; on the temporary halt, see Polaski v. Heckler, No. 84-5085 (8th Cir., Dec. 31, 1984); for the case's movement through the courts, see Civ. No. 4-84-64 (D. Minn., 4th Div., April 17, 1984); Polaski v. Heckler No. 84-5085, 751 F.2d 943, 8 Soc. Sec. Rep. Ser. 178, Unempl. Ins. Rep. CCH 15,666 (8th Cir., Dec. 31, 1984); Polaski v. Heckler, No. 4-84-64, 606 F. Supp. 549 (Dist. Ct., D. Minn., 4th Div., April 12, 1985); Heckler v. Polaski, No. 85-55 (U.S., October Term, 1985).