Social Security Wants To Clarify

From a notice from Social Security to appear in the Federal Register tomorrow:

We are reopening for a limited purpose the comment period for the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that we published in the Federal Register on August 19, 2010 (75 FR 51336). We are reopening the comment period for 15 days to clarify and to seek additional public comment about an aspect of the proposed definitions of the terms “marked” and “extreme” in sections 12.00 and 112.00 of our Listing of Impairments (listings). We are reopening the comment period to accept comments about that issue only. We will not consider comments on any other aspects of the proposed listings for mental disorders that we receive during this reopened comment period. ...

Many commenters focused on two aspects of our proposed rule: 1) a definition of “marked” based on a standardized test score that is two standard deviations below the mean; and, 2) a separate definition of “marked” based on functioning that would be the equivalent of such a score if there were a standardized test. As discussed above, neither of these proposals represents new policy; both are based on our longstanding rules. However, some commenters said that our proposal would encourage our adjudicators to use standardized tests. Many said that we should drop all reference to standardized tests in the mental illness sections of the proposed rules and that the change would reduce the number of children and adults with serious mental disorders who qualify for disability benefits. Some who are already beneficiaries or who have family members who are beneficiaries were concerned that they would lose their benefits. ...

We did not intend for, and do not believe that, our proposed rules would do any of these things. ...

It looks like the other lines of criticism did not bother Social Security that much.