Societal

Introduction

Early in the pandemic, I created a categorization system to describe the tiers of impacts from the pandemic. At the first level, it was the acute/chronic diseases and deaths caused by infection. Those are addressed in the Sequelae section of the site.

Secondary Impacts

Traffic Safety

Traffic Safety Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Fatal Crashes in 2020–2022 (2024)

Disability Claims

I had seen a post on Twitter around disability claims. I have a bit of a knack at spotting things in raw data, and wanted to look at this data in more detail.

A line graph displaying the increase in the population with disabilities in the United States from 2009 to 2025, showing a steady upward trend.

I pulled the data set to do my own visualization and analysis. I made a small mistake in my social media post saying that I used a month delay for a dividing line between pre-pandemic and during pandemic. I meant to say a year. I do that because the initial year saw a lot of disruption to social systems, so data may have been less accurate. My other rationale is that it took some time for a large enough proportion of the population to get infected and develop problems that would result in disability claims.

In this graph, the pre-pandemic claims are in blue columns and pandemic ones in red using that one year delay I just described. What is interesting in this one is the trend lines. The dotted trend line is the claims before the pandemic, and the solid one is during. Claims have been climbing at a much higher rate since the pandemic started using a linear model.

Line graph depicting disability claims over time, with pre-pandemic claims in blue and post-pandemic claims in red. Includes linear trend lines for both periods.

Early in the pandemic, I learned to use calculus in such a way that I could predict to the day when case counts would climb or fall in the country up to about ten days ahead with 99% accuracy. That was back when we had really strong surveillance systems capturing case counts in every county. That was an incredible data set at the time and led me to first identify how political party was a strong indicator of disease and death from COVID.

I used roughly the same technique to look at this data and project ahead. The dotted red line is the six prior month derivative; the solid one is the six-month moving average of the derivative. The distance above the black dotted line is proportional to the increasing rate of claims.

To put that another way, the distance of the red line from the dotted black line represents the rate at which new claim filings are increasing when above that line, and the rate at which they are falling when below that line.

The main thing to point out in this is the height of the red line at the yellow arrow. This method suggests that in about six months, the rate of new disability claims will be higher than at any point since 2008, the earliest this data was readily available.

A line graph depicting disability claims over time, with blue columns representing pre-pandemic claims and red lines indicating pandemic claims. The graph includes trend lines and a highlighted section pointing to a recent spike in claims.

Here is the really frightening part for people with disabilities and for those who will be filing for them related to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBB), signed into law on July 4, 2025.

Medicare – The bill is projected to increase the federal deficit, which triggers automatic cuts to Medicare under the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) Act of 2010. This could lead to cuts estimated at $490 billion between 2027 and 2034.

Medicaid – The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the bill will reduce federal Medicaid spending by an estimated $911 billion over a decade. Other sources put the estimate even higher, around $1.02 trillion. These reductions stem from various provisions, including work requirements, eligibility checks, and restrictions on provider taxes.

There are other ramifications to this bill too that will have a big impact on those disabled by COVID.

  • Work Requirements: The bill includes work requirements for some Medicaid recipients, which critics argue could lead to coverage loss for individuals who face barriers to employment, even if they have disabilities or care for someone with a disability.
  • Impact on Rural Hospitals: Cuts to Medicaid funding are projected to negatively impact the finances of hospitals, nursing homes, and community health centers, potentially leading to reductions in services, employees, or closures, according to NPR.
  • Social Security: Some reports suggest the bill’s changes could potentially affect the solvency of Social Security trust funds in the long term. 

It’s just further evidence that the Republican party wants people dumb, destitute, dismembered, diseased, or dead.

A cartoon depicting a frightened man in a suit being caught in a net labeled 'Medicare and Medicaid,' held by two large figures in suits and red hats.