Shuffling The Deck Chairs

      From the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare:

There’s been an uncanny amount of re-shuffling of workers and resources at the Social Security Administration lately – in a feeble attempt to paper over Trump’s reckless cuts in staffing. The latest example of this game of whack-a-mole unfolded last week. 

Commissioner Frank Bisignano announced a shiny, new plan to “centralize” medical reviews for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits — which could impact nearly 9 million Americans. (Disabled workers can lose their benefits if they do not pass these periodic reviews.)

This shift yanks the review process away from experienced state Disability Determination Services (DDS) offices, supposedly to boost “accountability.” These medical reviews will now fall under the purview of SSA’s federal Disability Case Review (DCR) team. 

We suspect that this move has nothing to do with “accountability,” and really is about “re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic,” as our senior Social Security expert, Maria Freese, puts it.  She points out that Trump’s SSA, after recklessly cutting more than 7,000 jobs when the agency already was understaffed, now finds itself falling short in key areas — and is furiously trying to plug holes.

“The agency has way too much work, with too few people. So they shift around the workload (in this case, SSDI reviews), so that overburdened staff in other areas have to do that work. That ultimately leaves SSA with a deficit somewhere else.” Freese explains. “Eventually, everyone who is reliant on the agency suffers.” …