Apparently, Social Security is preparing for today's hearing before the Energy, Health Care and Entitlements Subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform by publicly announcing via an "Emergency Message" goals for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) redeterminations.
I wonder if the proposal sent over to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to require attorneys to obtain and submit all relevant evidence on claimants they represent before the agency is also related to this hearing. We'll have to see the actual language of that proposal but I have to think that Social Security knows that they can't go forward with this unless they water it down so much as to make it meaningless. There's a reason this sort of thing has never been proposed before. Social Security officials know that the basic concept is unworkable.
What makes you think that the release of the annual Redetermination processing goals has anything to do with Congressional hearings? The goals are usually released in early October, coinciding with the start of the fiscal year, but could not be this year because of the shutdown. Nothing is more routine than this. You are overthinking it.
ReplyDeleteAt first I wondered the same thing, but concluded that this was a facetious comment that SSA didn't think the hearing was all that important.
ReplyDeleteWe in the field are mostly concerned with getting our claims cleared, our redeterminations interviewed and our overpayments off our listings. Hearings before a Congressional committee never seem to have much to do with our day to day jobs. At least not until some policy change trickles down. And then we change what we are doing.