A Couple Of Items From Senate Appropriations Committee Report

Here are three interesting excerpts from the Senate Appropriations Committee report on the Labor-HHS Appropriations bill.

The Committee requests a letter report not later than August 24, 2007, on current and planned initiatives to improve the disability process, including the status and results of the disability service improvement process being piloted in the New England region and efforts to improve the hearing process. ...

The budget request includes bill language earmarking not less than $263,970,000 of funds available within this account for continuing disability reviews and redeterminations of eligibility under Social Security's disability programs. An additional $213,000,000 earmark for continuing disability reviews and redeterminations of eligibility also was proposed in the budget request. ...

Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have reported that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is as disabling as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, end-stage renal failure, and multiple sclerosis. The Committee has encouraged SSA officials to continue the education of adjudicators at all levels about the functional impact of CFS to ensure that they remain up to date on the appropriate evaluation of disability that results from this condition. Within 60 days of enactment of this act, the Committee requests a report from SSA on these ongoing educational activities as well any plans to update the existing policy ruling on CFS, SSR 99-2p.

Note that the Senate bill would give Social Security $125 million more than requested by the President, but would earmark about $51 million of that to continuing disability reviews, meaning that there would only be about $74 million more than in the President's budget for reducing backlogs. Apparently, CDRs are a much higher priority for the Senate than backlogs.