A View Of The Future?
From
The Globe and Mail of Toronto:
Some Canadians who believe they have been wrongly denied federal
disability benefits are being told, under new rules, that they have no
right to plead their case directly to the adjudicator of the new Social
Security Tribunal who will decide their appeal. ...
[I]n April 2013, the Conservative government eliminated the roughly 350 part-time members of those panels [hearing disability claims] ...
They
were replaced by 35 full-time members of the new Social Security
Tribunal (SST) which, despite inheriting a backlog of 7,224 cases,
managed to hear just 348 appeals in its first year of operation. By last
month, the backlog had grown to nearly 10,000, some of them dating back
several years.
New rules introduced when the SST was created allowed adjudicators to
hear cases by teleconference, video conference, in person, or by written
question and answer. But the adjudicators could also decide,
unilaterally, that the written material given to them by the claimants
and the government was sufficient and that no further live input was
necessary.
In the first 13 months of the SST’s operation, 57 cases were decided
on the basis of the existing written record alone. In the same period,
173 appeals were heard by teleconference, 52 by video conference and 123
were done in person.
Dominique Forget, the senior director of the
tribunal, said in a telephone interview on Friday: “It’s a question of
flexibility and efficiency.” Appellants can express their preference,
she said, but “we’re trying to move files and to be as quick as we can.” ...
6 comments:
let's hope so.
I work as a decision writer, yet I can't help but wonder why we have this bloated bureaucracy. Do we really need a system that allows appeals every time someone is denied a government benefit?
Procedural due process says yes.
i know what the legal argument is.
However, laws can be changed. It's time to rethink the whole system. Just because we've done it this way, doesn't mean we need to continue.
2:06 is right. There's a huge difference between what process SCOTUS has said the US govt must give to claimants and what the Regs/etc. demand process-wise. If Congress/SSA wanted, they could afford much less process and still run a constitutional ship.
I find it interesting that reps--out of one side of their mouths--talk incessantly about how important it is for the ALJ to see the claimant face to face (they use this argument when discussing doing away with hearings, as well as when arguing against video hearings) to understand just how limited he is, simultaneously say out of the other side that a one-time, brief CE, the claimant's ability to walk comfortably from the parking lot, his ability to sit comfortably during the hearing, his FB page showing he went to the beach, etc. etc. (evidence showing short-term or brief ability to function) are all garbage and not indicative of his sustained functional abilities. I mean, how is there such a huge difference between the observation powers of ALJs vs. CE examiners?
Which is it--is short observation super critical to the process, or is it an unrepresentative, uninformative snapshot?
anxiously awaiting the pretzel logic to come.
What else do you expect from a secretive, right-wing government?
All of the factors you've mentioned are to be and should be weighed, including a claimant's testimony, which is the only time in the process where sworn testimony is given. A claimant has a right to procedural due process, and should otherwise continue to have that right for SSDI benefits particularly since we as citizens are legally required to pay FICA taxes from our wages.
I find it disheartening that some bureaucrats feel it fine to mandate the payment of FICA taxes but don't give a damn about due process rights when the bureaucrat denies benefits to the taxpayer/claimant. You can agree or disagree about paying a claim, but people shouldn't be flippant about due process rights.
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