From The NOSSCR Conference -- Glenn Sklar

Some notes from the presentation by Glenn Sklar, Social Security's Associate Commissioner for the Office of Disability Programs at the conference last week of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR), with my comments in brackets:

• Commissioner Astrue is talking about holding public hearings on Social Security issues. [Social Security has held public hearings only very rarely -- but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does this a lot. Astrue spent a lot of time dealing with the FDA in the past.]
• Commissioner Astrue is talking about setting up various committees under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, perhaps on various Listings. [I think that the FDA uses advisory committees a lot.]
• Social Security will be publishing a Notice of Proposed Rule-Making (NPRM) to change the mental impairment Listings. There will be "significant" changes. [I have heard nothing to suggest that this should make me tense, but I am getting tense anyway.]
  
• Sklar kept saying that "we're teeing this up" or "we teed that up." He was apparently referring to placing some issue under in-house discussion. I have heard him use this unusual phrasing in the past. [Sklar must be an avid golfer.]