Senators
James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) have written a letter to Senator Orrin Hatch, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee urging further "reforms" to Social Security disability. Apparently, the Senators are urging passage of an amendment sponsored by Lankford that would require, in his words:
- Updating the Social Security Administration (SSA) medical and vocational guidelines for eligibility, which hasn’t been updated since 1978
- Making sure that claimants who are assumed to be able to work (i.e., eligible for Unemployment Insurance) don’t get trapped in a benefits system that discourages work
- Streamlining the process to eliminate unnecessary steps for claimants for reconsideration
- Tightening rules and requirements, and reducing fees to keep Administrative Law Judges (ALJs), claimant representatives, medical experts, and SSA accountable.
- Strengthening SSA and Congressional oversight of SSA and ALJs
- Creating a separate budget account for SSA’s program integrity work, to ensure benefit processing is accurate and efficient
- Making available information to Disability Determination Services and ALJs about medical improvement, and,
- Ensuring that claimants whose records are not fully-developed have their cases thoroughly reviewed.
16 comments:
The fee claimant's reps are allowed to charge is low. Our office's average fee per claim is $2400. That's hardly a king's ransom for the work that is done on the claim, and hardly a king's ransom given we can only collect a fee on cases we win. In most personal injury cases, the fee is 1/3 and it is not capped. Before anyone says that a lot more work is put into PI cases, consider the fact that most settle outside of court, whereas in SSD, only about 1/3 are paid prior to hearing. It looks like these guys simply want to discourage people from practicing in this area of law.
LOL...I've done PI. And Work comp. There is a helluva lot more work in the average SSD/I case. Lankford and his ilk don't have as a goal screwing the attorneys. That is a collateral benefit. The prize is getting the lawyers out of the system so he can REALLY stick it to the poor and disabled.
Any update of the grids/DOT will not have the effect Republicans seem to think. There's not really any such thing as unskilled sedentary work in the modern economy, any update actually based on jobs currently existing in the national economy would result in a LOT more people getting paid. Which is why it hasn't been done.
Interesting that Joe Manchin, a Democrat trying to stay afloat in a conservative state, would co-sponsor this. Does he know how many of his constituents depend on social security/SSI disability checks to live? I'm just saying . . .
I believe this proposal also eliminates the withholding of fees from the claimant's past-due benefits. Presumably, the rep will have to collect the fee directly from the claimant.
A text of the bill is on the Senator's site. There's some fairly harsh changes, including elimination of direct-fee payment and a 30-day deadline to submit evidence before a hearing. Also it eliminates the treating-source rule which seems cosmetic to me because it's not like anyone lets the rule get in the way of a denial.
Senator Lankford seems to be under the impression that claimants have two actual chances to win before a hearing at the DDS level and reconsideration. However, statements made on this blog show that is not really true. Only those who meet a listing or compassionate disease have a reasonable chance of getting disability in the first two rounds, because the review is "cursory." For most, it's deny, deny and hope they go away! So, naturally, people who are truly disabled have no choice to appeal. Senator Lankford appears to be willing ignorant (dumb on purpose) of the process because he wants to cut, cut, cut!
Compassionate Allowance, not disease.
Also, I think SSA should pay the reps at the hearing and beyond levels instead of taking it from the money awarded to claimants. This is not a civil lawsuit, it is a benefit paid for by all as "insurance" to those who become disabled. So, if SSA wants to drag a process out for 2 years or more, why must the claimant be punished? How about coming up with a system that ensures due process in a timely matter. Perhaps, a system whose goal is to figure out which people are disabled instead of which can find a doctor that is more willing to say they are!
So this amendment was proposed last October. But the newest letter to Senator Hatch doesn't specifically mention the amendment. Is this a general wish list for Senator Lankford or does the amendment in its entirety have any chance of being signed into law?
@5:51 good observation. WV is absolutely loaded with people who have back-breaking work histories, very very few of whom have education or experience that is transferable to a physically non-demanding job. Talk about a betrayal of one's constituents...
Can you imagine the disaster it would be if the attorneys/reps walked away from the system? The field offices are critically understaffed to the point where it takes 7-8 weeks to even get an appointment for a disability claim. I see a lot of clients who tried to start a claim on their own and could not. When we file a claim, that tedious process of getting all the work and medical information is done for SSA, claims rep has to do nothing. DDS has a person to call and get them information. We put the information in the files, direct them to the right rules and SCREEN cases. I have deterred many, many folks from applying because they did not meet rules. So, if we all walk away....what happens? How many employees would SSA have to hire and pay? I think that SSA prefers it this way, wherein the claimant pays for his own case development.
Politics as usual. Rich special interests who want to trash the disability system donate large sums to politicians. Politicians propose thinly veiled proposals designed to accomplish that aim. Google Koch brothers and Manchin, and then Lankford.
No excuse for Manchin to tie himself to a bozo like Lankford. Lankford loves to talk about the "truly" disabled, which translates in his world to comatose or quadriplegic. His world view was shaped by an aunt who was able to work despite missing part of a leg or something like that. The idea of an individualized assessment must be too much for his holier than thou mind to grasp.
1/3 of applicants are paid initially, about a million a year.
Re: 2:40 PM on 2/7/16 - I agree. For example, the DOT is hopelessly outdated and yet we still get VE testimony based upon it with no acknowledgement that the occupations have actually changed in 30 years. What?! You mean the microfiche mounter occupation or whatever the heck it is called doesn't exist in significant numbers now?! Shocking!
But I guess I could be wrong. I mean, who am I to say that the introduction and use of computers in the workplace may have actually changed the task elements section of a DOT occupation. Yes, I said C O M P U T E R S. That's a machine that SSA may have heard of that literally has transformed the workplace and has required a hypothetical worker to actually have more skills than identified in the DOT.
And while I'm at it I have to tell you about the utter confidence I have in the numbers of jobs that the vocational experts come up with at hearings.
Post a Comment