By Debbie Schlussel

If you aren’t aware of what a Social Security “fugitive” is, read this, and ask yourself, what happens when ObamaCare is enacted?  Will they do the same thing?  Bet on it.

A federal judge approved a civil-court settlement requiring the Social Security Administration to repay $500 million to 80,000 recipients whose benefits it suspended after deeming them fugitives.

The supposed fugitives include a disabled widow with a previously suspended driver’s license, a quadriplegic man in a nursing home and a Nevada grandmother mistaken for a rapist.

They were among at least 200,000 elderly and disabled people who lost their benefits in recent years under what the agency called the “Fugitive Felon” program. Launched in 1996 and extended to Social Security disability and old-age benefits in 2005, the program aimed to save taxpayers money by barring the payment of Social Security benefits to people “fleeing to avoid prosecution.”

But some federal courts in recent years have concluded that most people the agency identified as fleeing felons were neither fleeing nor felons. . . .

Roberta Dobbs, a 75-year-old widow in Durant, Okla., who uses a wheelchair and is tethered to an oxygen tank, was deemed a fugitive in 2006 because of an outstanding 2001 warrant issued in California following a traffic accident while Mrs. Dobbs was moving from her home. Her benefits were cut off for three years, forcing her to rely on friends, family and charity. . . .

Willie Mae Giacanni, 79, a retiree near Reno, Nev., was informed by the Social Security Administration in 2006 that her $350 a month benefit would be suspended because of a warrant outstanding in New York, a state she has never visited.

She said she “called different precincts,” trying to find out what she was wanted for. A detective told her the warrant was for Willie Frank Thomas, who was wanted for kidnapping and rape in 1972. . . .  The detective sent Mrs. Giacanni a letter to give to the Social Security office, stating that the warrant wasn’t for her, but the agency wouldn’t accept it.

Even if people succeeded in clearing their warrants, the SSA had maintained they shouldn’t have been paid benefits while the warrant was outstanding, and pursued them for the “overpayment.” . . .

Catherine and James McMahon, a retired nurse and teacher in their 60s, who unsuccessfully applied for Social Security disability benefits for their son, James Jr., who was struck by a truck and paralyzed in 2006.

The couple was told their son, who resides in a nursing home, was ineligible for benefits because of a 1991 warrant. “It had something to do with a late night college party,” said Mrs. McMahon. Her son, now 35, thought the matter was resolved after several court dates.

This poor couple is raising their quadriplegic son’s two kids. And they had to go through this fight to get a mere $735 a months on which to raise these kids.

This is what the government does for Social Security disability payments to very sick and/or elderly people. (If only our government were this zealous in denying illegal aliens government benefits. But for them, it’s easy street.)

Imagine what happens when they handle our healthcare. You wanna hire a lawyer and go on welfare for years, while you fight for the government to pay for your cancer treatment?

Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll still be alive when the court case is won. Or, more likely, your estate will be the only thing left around to collect.

This is the exact same bundle of capricious bureaucrats that will be deciding whether or not the government will allow you treatment for breast cancer or leukemia. And they won’t act any more compassionately for you than they did for the parents of a quadriplegic or a wheelchair-bound, oxygen-tank endowed senior citizen.