Witness List For Today's Hearing

The witness list is out for today's joint hearing of the Social Security and Income Security Subcommittees of the House Ways and Means Committee:

PANEL:

• The Honorable Bob Filner, a Representative in Congress from the State of California

PANEL:

• The Honorable Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner, Social Security Administration

An excerpt:
In Michigan, an economically hard-hit State, we have concluded that too many cases are needlessly going to the hearings level from the DDSs. Therefore, we plan to reinstate reconsideration in Michigan next fiscal year. ...

[W]e are also looking at reinstating reconsideration in Colorado, at the request of the Governor. ...

By the end of FY 2010, we expect to have 2,800 more DDS employees on board than we did at the end of FY 2008 ...

We are in-sourcing verbatim hearing reporting to further improve ALJ productivity. [Note that he appears to be talking about replacing contractors with federal employees.] ...

To assist with decision writing and case preparation in our hearing offices, we will establish National Case Assistance Centers (NCAC) in McLean, Virginia, and St. Louis, Missouri. The McLean NCAC is scheduled to open in May 2010 and will perform decision writing only. The St. Louis NCAC will be co-located with the new St. Louis NHC, opening in July 2010, and will both write decisions and prepare cases.
PANEL:

• Dan Bertoni, Director for Disability Issues Education, Workforce & Income Security Team, U.S. Government Accountability Office
• The Honorable Patrick P. O’Carroll, Inspector General, Social Security Administration

An excerpt:

As devastating as the wait for a decision can be, it is perhaps more troubling that, even once a claim is approved, there can be a delay in SSA actually issuing the funds awarded to the claimant. In conducting the survey described above, we discovered that some individuals whose claims were allowed were never paid. As a result, we have commenced an audit entitled Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income Claims Approved But Not Paid. In this audit, we are examining the extent to which this occurs. Although not completed, our review of almost half a million 2006 disability allowances in the Title II and Title XVI programs revealed initially that 61 deserving claimants had never been paid, and that another 19 did not begin receiving payments as early as they should have.

• Nancy Shor, Executive Director, National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey on behalf of Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Social Security Task Force
• The Honorable D. Randall Frye, Administrative Law Judge, Kings Mountain, North Carolina on behalf of Association of Administrative Law Judges

An excerpt:
We are presently informed that in some hearing offices cases are assigned out of rotation and reassigned from one judge to another. We believe such a practice must be discontinued as it is inconsistent with the APA [Administrative Procedure Act] and legal precedent and is detrimental to the American people.

• Eddie Willrich, Deputy Sheriff, Harris County Sheriff's Office, Houston, Texas, accompanied by Carol Durkin, Special Agent and Team Leader, Cooperative Disability Investigation Unit, Houston, Texas