Plan To Reinstate Recon Not Popular In Michigan

From the Detroit Free Press:

[There are] about 40,000 Michiganders waiting for Social Security to decide their pleas for disability benefits, a backlog among the nation's worst because of the state's lingering economic problems.

The Social Security Administration told Congress last month that it may use Michigan for an experiment to cut the wait. ...

"It's going to make a bad situation worse," said Cliff Weisberg, a Southfield attorney whose firm handles about 2,000 cases a year. "What good is it ... if by the time you get to a hearing, the client is dead?" ...

The agency has boosted efforts to clear the backlog, opening new hearing offices in Livonia and Mt. Pleasant, while allowing Michiganders to appeal their cases to administrative law judges in other states with video hearings. Yet Social Security Administrator Michael Astrue told a U.S. House committee last month that Michigan was still stuck with "some of the most backlogged hearing offices in the country."

That has led Social Security to consider bringing back a step it eliminated in 1999 known as reconsideration. ...

"That's a huge mistake," said Carl Anderson, a Detroit attorney who handles Social Security cases. "The same people who didn't pay the case the first time, didn't pay the case the second time." ...

"I probably rescue something like 12 people a year from homelessness," said Lisa Welton, a Southfield attorney. "There are probably twice that many living in a relative's basement, and a much larger number that wouldn't be living in their homes if their case didn't go through."

The inspector general of Social Security also has questioned the plan. Patrick O'Carroll said at a House hearing last month that if the agency makes the change in Michigan, people who win reconsideration will likely wait only nine months. But people who seek an appeal after reconsideration would wait at least 2 1/2 years. ...

In response to a question from the Free Press, Social Security spokesman Mark Lassiter said the decision to bring reconsideration back in Michigan "is currently on hold," adding "a final decision has not been made."

I still like my idea of increasing the time allowed to file an appeal from 60 days to six months. I do not think the reaction would be so negative -- it might even be a positive -- and the effect on the backlogs would be much the same. People will procrastinate in filing appeals but the delay will be their fault instead of Social Security's. If backlogs are increasing at the initial and reconsideration levels, why make them worse by reinstating reconsideration in those states where it has been eliminated?