Rochester Editorial

From an editorial in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle:

One million people by 2010. That's the estimated backlog of pending cases for Social Security Disability Insurance benefits.

To handle that increase, due largely in part to the aging of baby boomers, the approval and appeals process must be altered.

The Social Security Administration is making an effort to screen and prioritize cases that are or will be 1,000 days old by the end of September.

That's a start. But those are just bare minimums. Implementing those things won't be enough to address the growing backlog, currently at 745,000 cases.

Michael Astrue, SSA commissioner, blames understaffing and an increase in claims. While not much can be done to decrease the number of claims as boomers age, an increase in staffing should be a top priority. Congress, which has provided an annual average of $150 million less to SSA than President Bush has requested since 2001, needs to ease the strain on the system. ...

Change is needed immediately. Congress and SSA officials must act or the future of the country's disabled population will grow even bleaker.

Why is it that "the appeals process must be altered?" Why not just give the agency adequate resources? Social Security's backlogs seem to produce a knee jerk response of a desire to alter or reform the process. However, Social Security is suffering from an overdose of alterations and reform that well meaning people proposed as a means to avoid the need for additional resources. These schemes have only had a negative effect upon productivity while wasting valuable resources and time. Social Security will never alter or reform its way out of this hole. People who ask for alterations or reform in the process are part of the problem. Talk of reform is merely a distraction.