This is specifically for people who are completely disabled, can't work, and are _already_ eligible to have their loans dismissed. All it does is reduce the amount of paperwork required.
https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/4eij5y/obama_to_forgi...
I have friends from high school who are on SSI for depression and continue to work for extra income. They're mostly lazy and none of them live what we'd think of as awesome lives. But I wouldn't in a million years think of them as anything close to permanently disabled. If someone put foot to ass they'd be capable of supporting themselves and probably better off and happier in the long run for it (which is a whole different discussion entirely).
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/the-end-...
... SSI disability benefits have basically become the new "welfare", for those "lucky" enough to qualify. As you rightly noted, barring a real physical injury, the most probable pathway for the largest number of people involves psychiatric and emotional issues.
I'm not one of these right-wing "just get a jerb!1" populists, nor am I alleging widespread fraud. I don't doubt for a second that most disability benefit recipients really do have psychiatric encumbrances to work. Your account just happens to be a situation to which I've been repeatedly exposed:
> They're mostly lazy and none of them live what we'd think of as awesome lives. But I wouldn't in a million years think of them as anything close to permanently disabled. If someone put foot to ass they'd be capable of supporting themselves and probably better off and happier in the long run...
To put it another way, I consider myself extremely lazy. Yet as much as I hate working, there's no way in hell I'd trade having a job for the hopeless subsistence existence of an SSI recipient. We're talking less than $20k/yr even in a high cost of living state. One is not allowed to save more than $2,000. If someone's judgment is so impaired that they see this as a fruitful voluntary life plan, then the workforce is better off without them, in my opinion.