From The Tax Time by Annie Lowrey in The Atlantic about what she calls " 'time tax'—a levy of paperwork, aggravation, and mental effort imposed on citizens in exchange for benefits that putatively exist to help them":
... American benefit programs are, as a whole, difficult and sometimes impossible for everyday citizens to use. Our public policy is crafted from red tape, entangling millions of people who are struggling to find a job, failing to feed their kids, sliding into poverty, or managing a disabling health condition.
The United States government—whether controlled by Democrats, with their love of too-complicated-by-half, means-tested policy solutions; or Republicans, with their love of paperwork-as-punishment; or both, with their collective neglect of the implementation and maintenance of government programs—has not just given up on making benefits easy to understand and easy to receive. It has in many cases purposefully made the system difficult, shifting the burden of public administration onto individuals and discouraging millions of Americans from seeking aid. The government rations public services through perplexing, unfair bureaucratic friction. And when people do not get help designed for them, well, that is their own fault. ...
10 comments:
I've always viewed complexity as a primary result of people trying to be "fair" and/or defining those eligible with precision. Often as a result of aome IG or newspaper expose about how "loopholes" allowed those who shouldn't get something get it. Simplicity is a blunt knife, while complexity allows more surgical precision in deciding who gets and who doesn't. The discussions on SSI clearly show the mindset. A lot of folks are all in that the 1/3 reduction (and teh whole in-kind support and maintenence policy) is needed because people get help and terefore deserve less. They argue that eliminating it is "unfair" because people will get more when they "don't deserve it."
The article argues simplicity, human nature says it will get complicated as holes and unintended consequences, let alone fraud, both for and against the recipients of the system are exposed and filled in because of "waste, fraud and abuse".
Simplicity is a goal, but you can't have it if it means too large of expenditures or too easy to defraud. (Let's ignore the intentional making it hard for people to get anything as DeSantis admits Florida's Unemployment is set up to do). A balance of simplicity and complexity is ideal but those IGs will find lot's of small leaks and the resulting patches will make things complex again.
The "complexity" of the SSA disability system does not result in "precision." It is a system that permits ALJs to justify almost any decision they want to make and is extremely arbitrary. That is why you have such a variation in the numbers. People who probably should not get benefits are given them by one judge while people who are deserving and desperately in need are denied benefits by another judge. This is anything but precision. WHy the system has not yet been declared unconstitutional is a mystery to me.
Social Security Disability and SSI have a very simple definition: the condition must be expected to prevent you from working for at least 12 months OR be expected to result in death.
The problems with this is that Social Security was never expected to be used for conditions that don’t for this definition - it’s no a short term disability program nor does it pay partial disability like the VA or BWC.
Maybe a good start would be to make it a percentage based program like the VA so that more people might qualify for some help when they need it.
It would also help if they just removed the waiting period for DIB and Medicare.
This is why Charles says that people that get on benefits are “too sick to work”. Maybe earlier intervention would help? There seems to be a bigger issue with younger people applying and trying to stay on benefits for decades.
ALJs are not "the disability system". The disability system is the Listings, the DDSs, the regulations and the constraints on decision making at the claims level prior to ALJs. The ALJ decisinomaking process doesn't disprove anything except that when humans are given the ability to make choices and decisions, different people will make different choices and decisions even within a framework. There will always be hanging judges and those who never convict.
But the disability system, well the system is designed to allow those that "meet the threshold" and deny those that don't. The precision is how detailed the threshold is defined, with the Listings showing a ton of detail that a simple system might never get to. The ALJ is a level beyond the system that exists prior to their involvement with abilities to make decisions denied those in prior steps.
See, a simple system would say "allow the deserving and thsoe who desparately need it" with a simple methodology but people would scream about those outliers that got by but "didn't deserve to". While a "precision" system says by a methodology that says "you, you are deserving but you over there, you are not" and people scream that the deserving are not getting what they should.
But ALJs are an override function, finally injecting a human into the mess the "precision" system has set up for review. If you expect consistency with a what can become a highly subjective analysis, good luck with that.
Too much time and resources are expended trying to make sure no one undeserving gets on disability. It's come to a 'prove disability beyond a reasonable doubt' which wasn't supposed to happen.
Vague rules. Arbitrary decisions. Disparate treatment. The Constitution requires better from the government.
It ain't just the ALJs exercising discretion. The DDS decisions are often arbitrary also. Even if the rules were not vague, the agency is largely left to choose when it will follow them and when it doesn't. Doctors at DDS make decisions without reviewing records. Consultative exams are performed by doctors who haven't reviewed any medical records, don't know the claimant's history and do basically a "drive by" exam pronouncing them fit as a fiddle. Then the ALJ ignores the opinion of long term treating physican's and relies on the DDS clowns. Precise system - give me a break. ..... well, maybe on second thought - if your goal is merely to manage the numbers, make sure there aren't too many people being approved, regardless of whether the right decisions are made, maybe it is precise.
In other words, why you need an attorney. The whole legal structure in the U.S. and probably the modern world is too complicated. If not, there would be no need for attorneys.
I don't think everyone realizes that the system isn't broken it's working exactly as it's designed to. It's a numbers game with denials being a priority.
Amen, 3:52!
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