Social Security has adopted new rules that say that "any [representative] payee who previously satisfied the payee investigation criteria, including a face-to-face interview, and currently serves as a payee generally need not appear for another face-to-face interview when subsequently applying to become a payee unless we determine within our discretion, that a new faceto- face interview is necessary."
The proposed rules that I have discussed here and here that would take away the right of an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) to schedule his or her hearings and let the Social Security Administration do the scheduling are the the Federal Register today. This may sound technical, but it is a big deal.
Finally, Commissioner Astrue has scheduled a public hearing for November 18 in Fort Myer, VA on his Compassionate Allowance plan and it is clear that he is planning to hold the hearing himself. In and of itself, the public hearing, like the Compassionate Allowance plan itself, is trivial but scheduling this is an indication that Michael Astrue is not leaving his position as Commissioner in the immediate future.
The proposed rules that I have discussed here and here that would take away the right of an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) to schedule his or her hearings and let the Social Security Administration do the scheduling are the the Federal Register today. This may sound technical, but it is a big deal.
Finally, Commissioner Astrue has scheduled a public hearing for November 18 in Fort Myer, VA on his Compassionate Allowance plan and it is clear that he is planning to hold the hearing himself. In and of itself, the public hearing, like the Compassionate Allowance plan itself, is trivial but scheduling this is an indication that Michael Astrue is not leaving his position as Commissioner in the immediate future.
1 comment:
AALJ is not going to be able to stop this any more than any of the other agency initiatives which just keep making things worse. It will take NOSSCR or some other organization with some power to defeat this effort to remove the final bastion of ALJ authority under the APA.
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