Damian Paletta has an article in the "Politics" section of the Wall Street Journal today. The article deals with two issues that have been discussed in this blog in the past:
- The Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) will do a study of Social Security's disability programs. This study will "focus" on Administrative Law Judges (ALJs). Harold Krent, dean of Chicago-Kent College of Law is to be the lead researcher. According to the article "A top Social Security Administration official had a conference call with roughly 300 managers Wednesday to express concern about the issue of outlier judges [mostly those who approve too many claims] and said he was hopeful the new study could provide ways to address the problem, a person familiar with the call said."
- Social Security will stop notifying claimants and their attorneys of the identity of the ALJ to hear a case. This is to be a secret until the day of the hearing.
SSA's Office of Communication had this to say in response:
ReplyDelete"......"
It's a department of 200 GS-14s and they don't do ****.
A good place to cut the SSA budget, without hurting clients and beneficiaries. Something must be done to get the US Gov gudget/debt under control, and stop just digging.
ReplyDeleteThere will still be enough posters and pamphalets.