If you are an Administrative Law Judge (ALJs) or an attorney who represents Social Security claimants and your blood pressure has been a little low lately, take a look at What Should We Do About Administrative Law Judge Disability Decisionmaking by Richard J. Pierce, a professor at George Washington Law School and a member of the Administrative Conference of the United States. Here are a few highlights:
- He argues that disability determinations made by ALJs are inherently inferior to those made at the initial and reconsideration levels
- He recommends that we should make a claimant's former employer pay a portion of disability benefits granted and give that employer the ability to contest a Social Security disability claim.
- He believes that Social Security should implement quality assurance reviews of ALJ decisions.
- He recommends eliminating the consideration of non-exertional impairments although he concedes that there are some people who suffer disabling pain or mental illness.
- He recommends the elimination of all ALJs and, apparently, any right to a hearing at Social Security. He thinks it highly unlikely that the Supreme Court would have a problem with that, especially since he regards ALJs as unconstitutional.
12 comments:
Quality reviews already happen at the AC
Doesn't the man know how to use a spell check? Doesn't GWU have an editor for formal papers? Just with the naked eye I noticed the misspelling of mental right before footnote 24, and the misspelling of corollary at the beginning of the second paragraph on page 21. There are probably more spelling errors. This thing is a total piece of junk. If a second year law student had written it, it would have deserved a C.
This is one of the worst pieces of "legal scholarship" you will ever run across. In addition to the obvious grammatical errors, the paper is riddled with factual inaccuracies. Although Prof. Pierce is supposed to be knowledgeable about the Social Security disability program, it is clear that he does not really understand it at all. He has no concept of what really makes the disability system so dysfunctional.
I wouldn't call him an expert on Social Security and I don't think he is an expert on anything. If you click on his name, it will pull up 17 other papers he has written that are on file and the topics are all over the board.
"give that employer the ability to contest a Social Security disability claim".
An employer may lie for or against a claimant.
"He recommends the elimination of all ALJs"
I agree,it should remain with a state or federal disability analyst/employees because aljs may prejudice a claim by what they see(race,gender) or by their beliefs(conservative or liberal view).
That also would save SSA some money.
I think it's time for Professor Pierce to hang it up. I hope no reputable law journal accepts this piece for publication.
ANON 4:11, so ALJs might let their biases color their decisions, but the analysts/employees working for the state Disability Determination Service are always going to be unbiased. I do not think so. DDS staff suffer from the same biases as everyone else.
Anon 4:46, not seeing the applicant is the biggest problem at the DDS level. Maybe make all hearings done by phone with voice harmonizers to eliminate all bias.
Not seeing an applicant maybe beneficial as opposed to,for an example,a thirty year old black male who has a hearing with an old(68-90)white male with different experiences.
Signed,
4:11 PM, August 04, 2011
Anon 4:11 why are you bringing in the race card?
"Anon 4:11 why are you bringing in the race card?"
Because it's sometimes in a person's deck.
Signed,
4:11 PM, August 04, 2011
There are values to the "objective" review of the case in the electronic file and to the "subjective" seeing the person (or at least a telalink). The objective file view is usually better for the medical and listings, while the subjective can be useful in getting behind work history and motivation, age and eduction in terms of the individual.
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