LAW WILL HALT DISABILITY CHECKS : SUBSTANCE ABUSE WON'T QUALIFY AFTER THIS YEAR.

Byline: Anne Burke Daily News Staff Writer

After a long battle with the bottle, Annette Osborne of Palmdale says she's sober, attending AA meetings and getting back on her feet.

But the laid-off aerospace worker is afraid she won't be able to make it without her $626-a-month Supplemental Security Income check.

``I haven't been able to find any work since 1993,'' said Osborne, 57. ``I'm not old enough for Social Security. I really don't see another source of income.''

Osborne and thousands of others in Los Angeles County may lose their checks starting Jan. 1 because President Clinton last March signed a law eliminating Supplemental Security Income and Social Security disability benefits for drug addicts and alcoholics.

As many as 70 percent of recipients may requalify for benefits on the basis of another disability, but must reapply to do so, said Social Security Administration spokesman Phil Gambino.

Proponents of the legislation complained that taxpayers should not subsidize drug and alcohol use.

``SSI was (intended) to support physical disabilities, like blindness or lameness. That simply does not include self-inflicted wounds, and that's what we have, of course, in substance abuse,'' said Lewis K. Uhler, president of the National Tax Limitation Committee in Roseville, Calif.

There were also reports of rampant abuse in the system. In some cases, alcoholics designated neighborhood liquor store clerks and bartenders as their official payee - the person to whom their check was made out and who was supposed to make sure the money wasn't spent on booze or drugs.

But advocacy groups for substance abusers, who opposed the legislation, claim the law will do little to eliminate drug and alcohol abuse.

Instead, they claim, it will shift responsibility for drug addicts and alcoholics to the overburdened county health and welfare system, jeopardize public health and increase crime.

``You're going to turn loose a whole bunch of people who are not going to have any income, any skills. Those people are going to be out on the streets, and they're not going to go hungry,'' said Louise Monaco, an SSI attorney who works with substance abusers on Los Angeles' Skid Row.

Government authorities claim the legislation will save nearly $5.8 billion over seven years.

Critics of the law claim abuses were largely eliminated by monitoring measures enacted through 1995 reform legislation. They also say that substance abusers suffer from a disease, and should be treated like other such people.

Nationally, 205,000 alcoholics and drug addicts receive such benefits. One quarter of them live in California. In Los Angeles County, there are 6,200, according to the Social Security Administration.

Benefits are paid for three years, and recipients are required to be in rehabilitation.

Many recipients are at the bottom of the heap, wasted by booze, heroin or crack cocaine, and plagued by mental disease or physical maladies, according to opponents of the law.

``There's a big hue and cry of let them go to work. But who's going to hire these people?'' asked Dave Mendelsohn, a case manager with the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence in Van Nuys.

Along with their checks, recipients will lose Medi-Cal health insurance. They also may lose free rehabilitation, advocates said.

Health care is important for drug addicts, many of whom carry tuberculosis, hepatitis or sexually transmitted diseases, said Bill Wilson, a corporate analyst with Western Pacific Med/Corps, which runs rehabilitation clinics in the Los Angeles area.

``These people are walking balls of toxins,'' Wilson said. ``This is a public health issue, it's not a welfare issue.''

Recipients who continue receiving benefits on the basis of another disability no longer will be required to get drug or alcohol treatment.

``That's the crazy part of this. If you want to rehabilitate people and g`et them into jobs, you have to deal with their substance abuse problem,'' said Barbara Otto, executive director of the SSI Coalition for a Responsible Safety Net in Chicago.

The elimination of benefits worries officials in Los Angeles County, already faced with staggering costs of caring for poor people who will be dumped from other federal welfare rolls.

Addicts affected by the legislation probably will turn to the county general relief system, which pays $212 a month, and use county health facilities, said John Clemons, government relations chief for the county Public Social Services Department.

The result could cost the county an additional $8.9 million a year, Clemons said.

Up to 1,200 of the recipients in Los Angeles County are chronically mentally ill, said Cora Fullmore, a deputy director with the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health. The county is pressing the Social Security Administration to continue their benefits, Fullmore said.

``We are talking about people with very serious diagnoses, people with bipolar disorders, various kinds of schizophrenia,'' Fullmore said.

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Photo

Photo: Annette Osborne, a recovering alcoholic, stands to l ose her government assistance under a law going into effect Jan. 1.

Jeff Goldwater/Daily News