From David Weaver, writing for The Hill:
The Biden administration recently released its first official budget plan, which recommends a 9.7 percent increase in the administrative budget of the Social Security Administration (SSA). This increase in top-line funding would partially reverse the chronic underfunding of the agency by Congress (SSA's core operating budget, adjusted for inflation, fell 13 percent from 2010 to 2021, while the number of beneficiaries SSA serves grew by 22 percent). However, problems with SSA's administrative funding go beyond insufficient funding of top-line numbers.
Increasingly, Congress has directed funding away from service delivery to disability reviews that remove individuals from the rolls based on SSA's assessment of medical improvement. ...
SSA plans to increase the number of full medical disability reviews next year by 36 percent and increase the number of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) redeterminations by 23 percent. ...
SSA plans to accelerate disability reviews next year so the agency can rapidly get back to being "current" on conducting the maximum number of reviews allowed by regulations. However, the agency shows no similar urgency on being "current" on other program integrity workloads. ...
Congress needs to pause increases in disability reviews and redeterminations until it can study — and possibly reform — the administrative process. That will also have the beneficial effect of allowing SSA to focus on service delivery as it begins to find its footing following the pandemic.
9 comments:
Odd indeed. Field offices closed to the public. Current online services are not the strongest alternative option imaginable.
I suspect CDRs were likely one of those workloads that didn't get done last year as other things were prioritized.
Charles, your captcha provider is getting absolutely ridiculous.
Compliments of Trump left overs Commissioner Andrew Saul, Deputy Commissioner David Black & minions, congressional Republicans relentless desire to undermine the Agency’s mission, and they’re targeting the most vulnerable population among us, those with disabilities. What none of these individuals realize is the criteria to be found disabled by the SSA is already extremely difficult. These individuals made it nearly impossible for the most common type of case, musculoskeletal conditions, with the new Regulations that were approved for such conditions last year. Why Biden has apparently chosen to allow all these things to occur when he had the opportunity to stop it is beyond me. It’s laughable the Republicans in Congress refuse to overturn any of the Trump 2017 Tax Cuts, which exclusively benefited corporations & the most wealth, but have no issue targeting the most vulnerable among us. The old stereotype that many of those on SSA Disability aren’t really disabled, but living off the gov’t dime hasn’t been true in years b/c the very stringent requirements one must meet to be found disabled in the first place. Plus, living on SSA benefits is no financial cup of tea, even for SSDI claimants who had a good work history with jobs that paid well.
Don't have a problem with it. In my experience, the main problem with government programs is not that people need them. It is some stay on it for too long.
You are probably seeing it with the extended unemployment benefits. Many people needed them at some point. But some are choosing it over returning to work.
I would like to see a disability system that is easier to get on but harder to stay on.
Increasing the number/frequency of CDRs has always been Mark Warshawsky's #1 disability policy priority; his co-conspirators Saul and Black are doing a bang-up job moving forward with his plans. I suspect that we will see more of Warshawsky's "favorites" in the coming months.
Are CDRs easy to do from home? Mail out the forms, wait for them to come back, process.
Because CDRs are the most useful thing SSA can find to do with the only significant new/good money Congress has given it in recent years (explicitly for fraud/waste/abuse stopping).
SSA knows more and more CDIs or OIG folks with badges and guns aren't going to change the fact that only a tiny percentage of people are attempting disability fraud and only some of that tiny number will be found out. But, since the appropriations have been so specific, SSA only has so many ways to spend that "find the bad guys" money.
Can't mail from home
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