A Washington Post editorial is calling for "reform" of Social Security disability benefits. I don't know how to characterize the editorial other than to say they thing "something" must be done. That "something" must encourage disabled people to work. The Post seems unfamiliar with the extensive work incentives that already exist in the Social Security Disability programs. It's a really incoherent editorial.
23 comments:
For those on ssdi/ssi this is a si,ple risk-reward equation. If you can work, some, keep it under the amount allowed. Unless someone is offered a job that pays significantly above what the can make + their benefits, no sane person would risk losing thd benefits. Suppose they did take that higher paying job: would they be able to sustain working the job for more than a few months? If not, long-term risk would outweigh short-term benefits. Therefore, if you really want people to try, you have to give them more carrots and way less stick. In other words, you can't punish them for trying. If they try and fail, you have to make it easy for them to return. These proposals are just not aware of the hell you you have to go through to get benefits in the first place!
SSA is inundated with narcissists who do not give a damn about disabled people. They should fire all who've been there more than 20 years plus. They are the cancer of that agency and needed to be drained from the swamp !!!
They are beating the drum for the haters of the program which has been there since the beginning. These positions used to be called extremist but are now becoming mainstream. And it is not just social security, it is every program that protects those who don't already have it made. They aren't interested in fairness or societal welfare either. If you want examples just look at how they have decimated state worker's compensation programs. No justice to be found. They want it all if they can get it.
We must reduce the surplus population. No room to carry them with the robots taking over. If you are not an elite you should live in a slum and struggle everyday for survival. It works well in the third world. A civil society is over-rated anyway.
We forget that just over one hundred years ago the richest robber baron family of the Gilded Age used private thug detectives and the national guard to forcibly break a mining strike at Ludlow, Colorado slaughtering innocent women and children in the process. A short time ago in this country you had no protection and lived at the whim of the owner and the boss. Our ancestors fought like hell to make this a decent country for middle class and working families to live in. The wealthiest and most powerful people in the society seldom give a damn about rest of us. Of course they want to destroy social security or turn it over to Wall Street because it benefits their bottom line. Lets hope the people of this country are still smart enough and courageous enough to push back.
All of you are missing the point! We are living in a time of limited resources. Somewhere there is a war going on we need to get involved in, or a giant corporation needing a subsidy or a tax break, or a Wall Street bank that may need a taxpayer bailout in the near future. Priorities! It is all about priorities.
I am deeply skeptical these efforts are anything other than attempts to purge people and further damage the stability of the program. I believe they could care less about whether disabled people successfully return to work or not. Having been born, grown up and practiced law in the same midsize, midwestern city the past decades of change have been very interesting. I remember a time at the end of the Great Society era in the 1960's and 1970's when there was relative prosperity and you had to look for the homeless population in the downtown area. Good shopping and grocery businesses were also available in the less affluent parts of town. With the coming of the Reagan/Clinton/Bush social cuts parts of the city have become very dangerous and slummy with limited services. The homeless population also grew to the point where they were all over the downtown area. Since the downturn of 2008 the homeless have pretty much spread out to where they can be seen walking the streets all over town with backpacks and shopping carts filled with thweir belongings. I can imgine how it will be if they get to purge the disability program. The locals jails and emergency rooms will be flooded. The powerful forves behind this are merely motivated by ideological dogma and hatred with a good dose of greed mixed in. They have no goodwill toward the overall society. It is time to stop trying to reason with them and to oppose them and call them out for their meanness and spitefulness. This will be a terrible failure if they get it done. It will only destabilize this already volatile political situation in this country. There will be many more homeless families and children walking the streets. Shame on them!
Yeah, not mentioning current SSD work incentives was a major gap in the article. In my opinion what the Post proposes could not work currently for other reasons as well. Whenever an opinion piece quotes Autor and Duggan and starts suggesting privatization of SSD (as the Post article does) I start to worry that the authors may have either been duped by or are playing ball with special interests. Turning SSD into a cash cow for the private insurance industry and Wall Street has long been a goal of some elements of the Republican party and their major financial backers. If that ever happened SSD benefits would likely get slashed as the best interests of the disabled beneficiaries would then clash with the profit motives of the private industry players. Either the beneficiaries, public taxpayers or both would fare poorly.
I expected worse when I opened the article. Usually, "reform" means "cuts." The article specifically says cost savings should not be the goal of their requested reforms. However, it is naïve to think that with only some rehabilitation, SSD claimants could return to work. There are RTW rules already in place. And their idea of partial privatization is a non-starter.
I would think that the majority of those currently on benefits would be greatly reduced if the original 1956 standards were followed. A reduction of the current roles could be possible with a block grant to states, a messy situation that would be, we each state handling disability determination, healthcare and return to work training programs. One of the main things many on benefits want is not the check as much as the health coverage. A single payer system after WWII would have diminished the roles, the chance now are slim and none. If you followed the wave of austerity in Europe during the economic downturn you saw many countries review the disability roles and make drastic reductions to those programs.
The article was short on concrete ideas, it is easy to say but hard to do, just like we saw with healthcare reform. There will be much hand ringing and finger pointing and little actual action.
I will never understand why it takes 3+ years, or longer, to evaluate a government disability claim versus private disability insurer including for example AFLAC (1 day pay promise)who can routinely resolve a claim in 30 days or less.
I have a strong idea as to the reason why, but want to hear the excuses put forth from the SSA bureaucracy and attorneys on this site who gorge themselves at the public trough year after year at the expense of the poor disabled clients they represent.
@12:06
Chronic underfunding of agency staff needed to timely process claims is well documented, with the blame falling most squarely on Congress. May not be what you want to hear, and there may be several other less strong factors, but that is the big one.
How could anyone reform mass exodus of closet bigotry? Or the coming-out waves of hatred against foreign-born and anti-immigrant sentiments within an agency??!!
Bravo @ 4:05 PM
The ODAR disability process is unsustainable - everybody knows it. Entrenched ODAR bureaucrats are too personally invested in it to change it. And they won't take responsibility for failures either. Instead, they'll blaming slow producing subordinates and inadequate funding for the problem. But throwing good money after bad for them to mismanage won't work. Remember the one billion dollar stimulus Congress gave SSA out of the "Recovery Act" money? A lot of bonuses were given. A lot of new aljs and attorneys were hired. But more efficiency? No. More inefficiency? Yes, think Daugherty and how upper management studiously ignored it. Enough. Give block grants to the states to administer the program and call it a day. If all those people in red state districts with high numbers of disabled don't like it, then maybe they'll stop voting Republican year after year.
hey, the "we have to do SOMETHING" thing is a great ploy. It works for all the hawkish centrist dems (and of course republicans are always on board when it comes to war, save for poor Rand) every single time a president of any party (and of any moral character) wants to start a war.
Look at all the #Resistance politicians, journalists, pundits, etc. FAWNING ALL OVER the now-presidential Donald Trump after he fired off a few dozen missiles and took out some obsolete migs and a cafeteria (planes flew out of that airbase later that night to continue their bombings, lol).
@2:14 stated, "Entrenched ODAR bureaucrats are too personally invested in it to change it. And they won't take responsibility for failures either. Instead, they'll blaming slow producing subordinates and inadequate funding for the problem. But throwing good money after bad for them to mismanage won't work. Remember the one billion dollar stimulus Congress gave SSA out of the "Recovery Act" money? A lot of bonuses were given . . ."
You are SPOT-ON! I recall Gerald Ray's $60K bonus, and there were several others. This is where thinning of the heard is most needed in SSA/ODAR. There are far too many levels of management, and not enough people actually doing the work. Speaking of mismanagement, look at all the punitive management policies of late, i.e., punishing ALJ's, decision writer's, etc., with Reprimands, Suspensions, Denial of Telework, etc., if they do not reach certain, unreasonable quotas for dispositions or hearings held, quality and due process for claimants be damned.
As for throwing good money after bad, one need only look to the millions in taxpayer money to relocate an entire Hearings Office near former Atlanta ROCALJ Garmon's home to placate him for being removed from his ROCALJ position; the salary increases incurred by subsequently placing him as an executive in OLMER, no less, followed by another promotion to Associate Chief ALJ. How do any of these actions equate with disciplining a management official who was just removed from his ROCALJ position for egregious, longstanding labor management violations? What's so incredible is SSA/ODAR management is this inept and incompetent. I mean who in their right minds would take such actions? Unfortunately, this is only one of numerous examples. The list goes on and on.
If incoming budget money is thrown to the upper echelon management of SSA/ODAR, does anyone in their right mind think these individuals will increase efficiency where it is most needed, among themselves, or addressing punitive management policies which destroy employee morale, cause excessive micromanagement, particularly of those with advanced professional degrees, resulting in being treated like an elementary school child.
AFLAC doesn't have to afford due process, you dingus. We have a complex set of laws, regulations, and other policy that make us do certain things when processing claims. AFLAC has terms and conditions and processes it sets for itself that, I might add, are in its interest. Any "good" (read: profitable) insurance company is denying many meritorious claims or its policies were such garbage in the first place that the benefits they pay are not close to worth the cost of the policies.
Are you really this stupid?
hey SAA 27, would you care to tell me how SSA slipped that Atlanta North new hearing office location by GSA if it really was such a terrible, improper location to choose? You realize there's a lawyer at GSA who doesn't know nor care one bit about SSA and its drama that signs off on this stuff, and that other GSA employees (who similarly don't know and don't care) who largely drive the bus of federal space issues.
Don't believe me? Research GSA PBS in Atlanta and what they do. You can even find a roster of employees to interrogate since, to believe the version of the move you peddle, The Sunbelt Region of GSA would have to be in on the conspiracy.
@5:47
SA-27 here. Regular readers of this blog very well know I have stated in exquisite detail the sequence of events which took place enabling the relocation of an ODAR Hearings Office close to Garmon's home in comments I have made on this board the past couple of years. Think former Acting Commissioner Carolyn Colvin not being confirmed, (there were reasons which even the President could not overlook), plus she was not renominated; throwing the equivalent of a temper tantrum to prevent Eanes, the President's second nominee, from being confirmed, e.g., at one point she even offered to step down to a lower paying SES position ON THE CONDITION she could maintain her power as Agency Head. This request was unprecedented. By the time Eanes had all but been confirmed, Colvin succeeded in forcing him out the door. The Senate Finance Committee knew what was going on here, as well as many others. You see, as Agency Head, her, and her only, had Exclusive Power to determine whether individuals such as Garmon who had engaged in misconduct or wrongdoing, would in any way be held accountable by the Agency.
Clearly, Colvin went to bat big time for Garmon, et. al. We already knew by this time Garmon left his ROCALJ position by order of Judge Allen, kicking and screaming, and demanding all types of favors and special treatment. Garmon played the political favors game all the way to the top, i.e., Colvin. Colvin also played this game out to the very last minute refusing to leave until noon on Inauguration Day. There were reasons for this. After all, Colvin was way up in years, and certainly did not need to play this charade for her own benefit. What's baffling is why a political appointee went to such great lengths to remain, "Agency Head?" The answer, as I have said numerous times, is her, and her only, had the exclusive decision making authority to decide whether Agency personnel whom she knew from investigators engaged in misconduct or wrongdoing, would be held accountable in any way by the Agency. Surely, you realize the, "et. al.," I previously added at the end of Garmon's name is because he did not act alone.
Through the years, Garmon repeatedly engaged in a pattern of enticing subordinate managers and other employees to carry out misdeeds he specifically planned. Many of you will recall the previous blog posts concerning the two Regional Attorneys he similarly harassed, subjected to disability discrimination, and forced out the door. There was also a TV interview with a former assistant to Garmon who described him as, "A drama queen," constantly and needlessly stirring up sh-t all through Region IV. He said it was so bad, he put in for a transfer to get away from Garmon ASAP. There was also my long time Supervisory Attorney who Garmon illegally forced out the door after a stellar 20+ year career with the Agency for no good reason, and the unspeakable harassment she was subjected to in and outside the office that enabled him to do this. These cases are merely the tip of the iceberg. The recent decision by SCOTUS that decisions of former Acting Agency Heads who were also nominated to be confirmed for said positions, such as Colvin, are invalid and subject to review is great! I do not buy into any of your GSA arguments. In my 27+ years, I observed what power Agency Heads and power brokers like Garmon were able to do, and it was rare if GSA, or any other Federal entity, ever stopped them if they wanted it bad enough.
Further, your GSA arguments are also futile insofar as nearly everyone on this blog, including Garmon's friends, have concurred the location of the ODAR Hearings Office close to Garmon's home in a wealthy NW.Atlanta suburb, is a God awful location for a Hearings Office by anyone's standards. It's obvious as hell this office location was chosen specifically to placate Garmon. You cannot deny this. You can try to throw everything up you believe will stick not linking Garmon to the location of this Hearings Office, but it will not stick. You can try and play us for fools, but it is you who will ultimately be embarrassed and subjected to ridicule. The bottom line is this Hearings Office was intentionally gerrymandered near Garmon's home to placate his removal from the Atlanta ROALJ position. You may recall he left kicking and screaming. Even for ODAR standards, this is a wretched location for a Hearings Office, as it is not easily accessible for claimants, modes of public transportation are complex and time consuming at best, and even the AALJ filed a lawsuit over this. The other baffling thing in this situation is why Garmon is treated in such a special manner by the Agency. Certainly, I do not recall anything he ever did worthy of such distinction, honor, praise, and power. Garmon looks and acts like the Boss Hogg character from the old Dukes of Hazard TV Show, i.e., privileged powerful, overweight white guy who believes he is better than everyone else and the law does not apply to him, not too bright, etc.
The taxpayers expense to relocate this ODAR Hearings Office solely to placate Garmon cost millions of dollars. This is waste, fraud, and abuse, in addition to organizational discrimination, and we must all ask why this was done? This entire situation reeks of a smell so bad, it cannot be ignored.
Rocky sighting!!!
Whos this here Garmon feller everyone keep talkin about anyway? He sounds like spme kinda boogerman!
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