As I have stated before, the key assumption of the "Re-Imagining" report, which recommends that the Social Security Administration pretty much eliminate its field operations and try to handle all of its business by computer, is that Social Security has no choice but to do this because there will be no other way for the agency to handle its upcoming workload. I have been hearing this same sort of language for a long, long time. In the past, this sort of talk has always preceded a disaster.
In 1994 Social Security officials began work on a project to "re-engineer" the process for giving disability claimants hearings. High-priced consultants produced reports recommending a dramatic re-organization. The reaction in the field was that the plan was crazy. I can recall going to a conference of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) and hearing a high level Social Security official describe the re-engineering plan. She took questions. I asked her what Social Security was going to do if the re-engineering plan failed. She replied most emphatically that re-engineering would work "because it has to work." She said that Social Security "had no choice."
You can see the obvious problem in this person's thinking. Ideas do not work because we need for them to work. They succeed or fail based upon their merits rather than upon our perceived need for them to work. Once you say that you have no choice, you close off alternatives and are liable to do something foolish. Thinking this way, a man who cannot make enough money to support his family might decide that his only choice is to buy lottery tickets.
Re-engineering was tried out on a limited basis. It failed and was abandoned before it could do much damage. Tens of millions of dollars were squandered on consultants.
Unfortunately, the notion that Social Security could not possibly get its work done without some productivity breakthrough did not go away. The next effort at a "Great Leap Forward", to use the term that Chairman Mao employed in China to describe something vastly larger but motivated by the same belief that there was no choice but to try a "Hail Mary" pass (to mix my metaphors to a cosmic extent), was called Hearing Process Improvement (HPI). This was another effort at a re-organization of Social Security's structure to give hearings to disability claimants. Again, we were told that there was no choice, that this had to be done to meet future needs. This time, Social Security did not let the dismal results of HPI's trials slow them down. They plowed ahead with nationwide implementation but they made sure to do it at the end of 2000 as the Clinton Administration was leaving office. With only an acting Commissioner of Social Security for many months into the Bush Administration, there was no one to pull the plug on HPI as hearing backlogs soared to horrendous, unimaginable levels. HPI has to rank as the most dramatic mistake in Social Security history.
Social Security never recovered from the HPI debacle during the Bush Administration, mostly because the agency lacked operating funds but also because the new Social Security Commissioner, Jo Anne Barnhart, was able to distract everyone with her own plan to end the agency's backlogs. This plan involved electronic files and something else which she really did not want to describe, other than to tell us that it would be wonderful. Again, Barnhart told us that there was no alternative to her plan, whatever it was. The electronic files were implemented at enormous expense. They have still not led to any dramatic improvement in productivity. The rest of Barnhart's plan, which she called Disability Service Improvement (DSI), just got delayed further and further. She kept the details a huge secret until near the end of the Bush Administration. Once the details were released, it was clear why she had kept her plan a secret. It was nothing more than another ill-conceived reorganization plan. Like HPI, DSI's implementation was delayed until Barnhart was nearly out the door. Fortunately, it was not rushed into nationwide implementation. DSI was another failure. The current Commissioner, Michael Astrue, learned that not long after taking office and began to stop it. I am not sure that DSI has been fully wound down even now, some three years later.
The moral to this long story is that we should be extremely wary of anyone with a plan for Social Security who tells us that there is no alternative to his or her plan.
In 1994 Social Security officials began work on a project to "re-engineer" the process for giving disability claimants hearings. High-priced consultants produced reports recommending a dramatic re-organization. The reaction in the field was that the plan was crazy. I can recall going to a conference of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) and hearing a high level Social Security official describe the re-engineering plan. She took questions. I asked her what Social Security was going to do if the re-engineering plan failed. She replied most emphatically that re-engineering would work "because it has to work." She said that Social Security "had no choice."
You can see the obvious problem in this person's thinking. Ideas do not work because we need for them to work. They succeed or fail based upon their merits rather than upon our perceived need for them to work. Once you say that you have no choice, you close off alternatives and are liable to do something foolish. Thinking this way, a man who cannot make enough money to support his family might decide that his only choice is to buy lottery tickets.
Re-engineering was tried out on a limited basis. It failed and was abandoned before it could do much damage. Tens of millions of dollars were squandered on consultants.
Unfortunately, the notion that Social Security could not possibly get its work done without some productivity breakthrough did not go away. The next effort at a "Great Leap Forward", to use the term that Chairman Mao employed in China to describe something vastly larger but motivated by the same belief that there was no choice but to try a "Hail Mary" pass (to mix my metaphors to a cosmic extent), was called Hearing Process Improvement (HPI). This was another effort at a re-organization of Social Security's structure to give hearings to disability claimants. Again, we were told that there was no choice, that this had to be done to meet future needs. This time, Social Security did not let the dismal results of HPI's trials slow them down. They plowed ahead with nationwide implementation but they made sure to do it at the end of 2000 as the Clinton Administration was leaving office. With only an acting Commissioner of Social Security for many months into the Bush Administration, there was no one to pull the plug on HPI as hearing backlogs soared to horrendous, unimaginable levels. HPI has to rank as the most dramatic mistake in Social Security history.
Social Security never recovered from the HPI debacle during the Bush Administration, mostly because the agency lacked operating funds but also because the new Social Security Commissioner, Jo Anne Barnhart, was able to distract everyone with her own plan to end the agency's backlogs. This plan involved electronic files and something else which she really did not want to describe, other than to tell us that it would be wonderful. Again, Barnhart told us that there was no alternative to her plan, whatever it was. The electronic files were implemented at enormous expense. They have still not led to any dramatic improvement in productivity. The rest of Barnhart's plan, which she called Disability Service Improvement (DSI), just got delayed further and further. She kept the details a huge secret until near the end of the Bush Administration. Once the details were released, it was clear why she had kept her plan a secret. It was nothing more than another ill-conceived reorganization plan. Like HPI, DSI's implementation was delayed until Barnhart was nearly out the door. Fortunately, it was not rushed into nationwide implementation. DSI was another failure. The current Commissioner, Michael Astrue, learned that not long after taking office and began to stop it. I am not sure that DSI has been fully wound down even now, some three years later.
The moral to this long story is that we should be extremely wary of anyone with a plan for Social Security who tells us that there is no alternative to his or her plan.
Politics--don't you just love it! I yearn for the good old days when SSA really was independent. By that I mean, we were in Baltimore (and in the field) and politics was in D.C. and we were allowed to do our work and serve the public without interference. Yes, we need to make improvements. We are a dynamic agency and need to keep changing. But so much of the change implemented by politicians has one goal in mind--to make the agency implode from the inside and then privatize Social Security. Ms. Barnhart and her co-horts almost succeeded. Thank heavens for Commissioner Astrue who truly seems to want the best for the agency and the public.
ReplyDeleteSSA never was independent. In fact, when SSA was part of then DHEW and DHHS, it was subject to annual budget disasters simply because our budget was linked in Congress's committees to the committee for Medicaid and Medicare (thus abortion funding battles that went on for years). Moynihan and his cohorts sought to free SSA from Presidential control when they passed their independent agency legislation, but Congress wouldn't let go of its committee structures.
ReplyDeleteWhy? He who chairs Ways and Means has control of the Subcommittee on SSA and the LAE appropriation and therefore, the whole agency. SSA submits separate budgets but they seldom see the light of day. Now, the WH has it in mind to cut annual budget deficits by cutting future SS benefits--which have nothing to do whatsoever with defits and the national debt, but Never Mind!
In the old days they had us by DHHS. Now, they have us by the Deficit Commission. Independent we are not and never were. As for privatization, don't forget that the main advocate of privatization is Peter G. Peterson who is largely staffing and funding the Deficit or Catfood Commission, as it's also called. And, he's doing this with the blessing of a Democratic administration. Safe from privatization? Probably not. Nancy Ortiz
There is still an active misunderstanding among the management that adding computers will increse productivity. Regarding disability claims, they seem incapable of understanding that computers do not dispense due process.
ReplyDeleteI think the idea, though overstated, at the NOSSCR meeting, was "necessity is the mother of invention." But you and the commenters are right on this. Politics is an ugly and expensive business. Sometimes I wonder if grand improvements aren't more about creating/feeding jobs than solving a problem. Oh wait, no, that's the millions of research dollars thrown after stupid demonstration projects that everyone knows won't work.
ReplyDelete