CBO Study On Social Security Disability

From a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Study(footnotes omitted):

Between 1970 and 2009, the number of people receiving DI benefits more than tripled, from 2.7 million to 9.7 million. That jump, which significantly outpaced the increase in the working-age population during that period, is attributable to several changes—in characteristics of that population, in federal policy, and in opportunities for employment. In addition, during those years, the average inflation-adjusted cost per person receiving DI benefits rose from about $6,900 to about $12,800 (in 2010 dollars). As a result, inflation-adjusted expenditures for the DI program, including administrative costs, increased nearly sevenfold between 1970 and 2009, climbing from $18 billion to $124 billion (in 2010 dollars). Most DI beneficiaries, after a two-year waiting period, are also eligible for Medicare; the cost of those benefits in fiscal year 2009 totaled about $70 billion.

Under current law, the DI program is not financially sustainable. ... Without legislative action to reduce the DI program’s outlays, increase its dedicated federal revenues, or transfer other federal funds to it, the Social Security Administration (SSA) will not have the legal authority to pay full DI benefits beyond [2018].

NOSSCR Comments On Mental Impairments Listings Changes

The National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) has posted its comments on the proposed changes to Social Security's Mental Impairment Listings. Here are a few excerpts:

II. “B” Criteria Issues ...
[W]e have a significant concern about the language change in paragraph B3, which also applies to the newly proposed paragraph B1. As discussed below, SSA should use the word “or,” rather than “and.”

The NPRM [Notice of Proposed Rule-Making] proposes to change paragraph B to read as follows:

B. Marked limitations of two or extreme limitation of one of the following mental abilities:”
1. “Ability to understand, remember, and apply information”;
2. “Ability to interact with others”;
3. “Ability to concentrate, persist, and maintain pace”; and
4. “Ability to manage oneself.”

In the preamble to the NPRM, SSA explains the change from “or” to “and,” stating that it is not a substantive change from current policy, “but only a clarification of the overall requirement” ...

We are concerned that changing “or” to “and” in the actual listing could be misinterpreted as a change in policy that would set a higher standard so that a claimant would be required to demonstrate limitation in each of the three components of the proposed B1 or B3 criteria. We do not believe that this is what SSA intends by the proposed change in light of the statement above in the preamble ...

C. Use of standardized test scores and “standard deviations”

SSA proposes to incorporate provisions from the childhood SSI functional equivalence regulation, 20 C.F.R. § 416.926a(e), regarding the definition of “marked” and “extreme.” See 75 Fed. Reg. at 51342. This results in SSA defining “marked” and “extreme” in terms of standardized testing and standard deviations below the mean. Under this change, an individual could be found to have a “marked limitation” in one of the paragraph B criteria with a score that is at least two, but less than three, standard deviations below the mean on an individually administered standardized test designed to measure that ability. The individual could be found to have an “extreme limitation” with a score that is three standard deviations below the mean. ...

This is a flawed approach which should not be used in the listings for either adults or children with mental health disorders because, to date, no standardized instruments have been developed which measure the specific functions in the B criteria and are widely accepted by professionals in the field of assessment. ...

V. Listing 12.05: Intellectual Disability/Mental Retardation (ID/MR) ...
Claimants’ representatives know first-hand that some adjudicators will ignore or give less weight to IQ test scores if the adjudicators subjectively believe that the claimant’s functioning is inconsistent with the test score, even if there is no basis for rejecting the validity of the test score. We question this practice. The proposed criteria could support the practice of some state agencies and ALJs who deny cases because the claimant can cook, take care of personal needs, care for children, or shows some other skill or strength.

Comments on the NPRM must be filed by November 17.

Study On Accelerated Medicare Benefits For The Disabled

Social Security has released a new issue of the Social Security Bulletin, the agency's scholarly publication. One article is of particular interest for the long term. Social Security has been doing a demonstration project which has allowed a few people approved for Disability Insurance Benefits by Social Security to go on Medicare immediately without the brutal two year and five month waiting period. This is the first report on that project. Not surprisingly, those few who received early Medicare reported better health care.

Virginia Attorney Accused Of Misappropriating $450,000 In Social Security Fees

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

A Richmond attorney who was fired for theft this year from the law firm of Marks & Harrison has surrendered her law license after admitting to the Virginia State Bar that she misappropriated at least $450,000 from her former employer.

The case involving Kyle Cornelia Leftwich is now in the hands of Hopewell Commonwealth's Attorney Richard K. Newman, who said yesterday that he intends to seek criminal charges against Leftwich after the matter was referred to his office by the Virginia State Bar. Leftwich worked at Marks & Harrison as a disability-law specialist from September 1994 until her termination in June. ...

According to a disciplinary board affidavit, Leftwich's practice included representing disability claimants before the Social Security Administration. When she successfully concluded a claim, the government would issue a check for legal fees payable to her as the claimant's attorney.

Although the checks were made payable to her, they were the property of Marks & Harrison, in accordance with her employment agreement. Beginning in 2003, however, Leftwich began diverting some of these checks for her own use rather than delivering them to the law firm, the affidavit says. ...

Chamberlain, Edmonds Sold

I missed this story from the Atlanta Business Chronicle from September:

Emdeon will acquire Atlanta-based Chamberlin Edmonds & Associates for $260 million.

Nashville-based Emdeon, a health care information technology company, announced Monday it will buy Chamberlin Edmonds, whose software helps hospitals determine Medicaid eligibility. Chamberlin Edmonds' customers include more than 200 acute care facilities in 30 states.

As many readers know, Chamberlin, Edmonds provides representation on Medicaid disability cases that are closely related to Social Security disability claims.

Hypocritical?

The co-chair of the President's budget deficit commission, Erskine Bowles, is from my state, North Carolina. Bowles has a day job. Although he will be retiring shortly, he is President of the Consolidated University of North Carolina, meaning that he is in charge of 16 state colleges and universities which have about 200,000. students. North Carolina, like other states, has been hit hard by the ongoing recession. This has reduced tax revenues and created massive budgeting problems for all NC state agencies, including state colleges and universities. Given that Bowles seems largely unconcerned by the possibility of massive cuts in Social Security and Medicare, you would think that he would be hard at work cutting deeply into the budgets of the colleges and universities he controls, making the politically unpalatable decisions that must be made. You might think that but you would be wrong. Despite the fact that the state constitution requires that the legislature "shall provide that the benefits of The University of North Carolina and other public institutions of higher education, as far as practicable, be extended to the people of the State free of expense," Bowles has embarked upon massive tuition hikes at state colleges and universities.

By the way, I wish I could link to the "Erskine bowls" ad that Bowles ran during his race for the Senate in 2002, but alas, it is not available on youtube. The ad showed Erskine Bowles bowling. It was a feeble attempt to show that he had the common touch. It failed as did his Senate campaign.

The Real Problem

From Kevin Drum's blog:

I've been trying to figure out whether I have anything to say about the "chairman's mark" of the deficit commission report that was released today. In a sense, I don't. This is not a piece of legislation, after all. Or a proposed piece of legislation. Or even a report from the deficit commission itself. It's just a draft presentation put together by two guys. Do you know how many deficit reduction proposals are out there that have the backing of two guys? Thousands. Another one just doesn't matter.

But the iron law of the news business is that if people are talking about it, then it matters. So this report matters, even though it's really nothing more than the opinion of Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles. So here's what I think of it, all contained in one handy chart from the Congressional Budget Office:

Here's what the chart means:

• Discretionary spending (the light blue bottom chunk) isn't a long-term deficit problem. It takes up about 10% of GDP forever. What's more, pretending that it can be capped is just game playing: anything one Congress can do, another can undo. So if you want to recommend a few discretionary cuts, that's fine. Beyond that, though, the discretionary budget should be left to Congress since it can be cut or expanded easily via the ordinary political process. That's why it's called "discretionary."
• Social Security (the dark blue middle chunk) isn't a long-term deficit problem. It goes up very slightly between now and 2030 and then flattens out forever. If Republicans were willing to get serious and knock off their puerile anti-tax jihad, it could be fixed easily with a combination of tiny tax increases and tiny benefit cuts phased in over 20 years that the public would barely notice. It deserves about a week of deliberation.
• Medicare, and healthcare in general, is a huge problem. It is, in fact, our only real long-term spending problem.

To put this more succinctly: any serious long-term deficit plan will spend about 1% of its time on the discretionary budget, 1% on Social Security, and 98% on healthcare. Any proposal that doesn't maintain approximately that ratio shouldn't be considered serious. The Simpson-Bowles plan, conversely, goes into loving detail about cuts to the discretionary budget and Social Security but turns suddenly vague and cramped when it gets to Medicare. That's not serious.

Veterans Day 2010

Proposal To Cut Social Security

The co-chairs of the fiscal commission, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson have released their draft of recommendations for the Commission. It is important to note that this is only the draft of the co-chairs, not the final Commission recommendations. The co-chairs have these recommendations for Social Security:

• Index the retirement age to longevity -- i.e., increase the retirement age to qualify for Social Security -- to age 69 by 2075.
  
• Index Social Security yearly increases to a lower inflation rate, which will generally mean lower cost of living increases and less money per average recipient.
  
• "Increase progressivity of benefit formula" -- i.e., reduce benefits by 2050 for middle, and, especially, higher earners, relative to current benefits.
  
• Increase the Social Security contribution ceiling: while people only pay Social Security taxes on the first $106,800 of their wages today, that's only about 86% of the total potentially taxable wages. The co-chairs suggest raising the ceiling to capture 90% of wages.

Some reactions:

• From the White House: "The President will wait until the bipartisan fiscal commission finishes its work before commenting. He respects the challenging task that the Co-Chairs and the Commissioners are undertaking and wants to give them space to work on it. These ideas, however, are only a step in the process towards coming up with a set of recommendations and the President looks forward to reviewing their final product early next month," said White House spokesperson, Bill Burton.
• From Nancy Pelosi: This proposal is simply unacceptable. Any final proposal from the Commission should do what is right for our children and grandchildren’s economic security as well as for our nation’s fiscal security, and it must do what is right for our seniors, who are counting on the bedrock promises of Social Security and Medicare. And it must strengthen America’s middle class families–under siege for the last decade, and unable to withstand further encroachment on their economic security.
• From Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat: "We're not going to have an up-or-down vote on this. There are proposals in there that are painful. I told them I said there are things in here which inspire me and others which I hate like the devil hates holy water. I'm not going to vote for those things."
• From Senator Tom Coburn, a Republican: "If we do the cuts, I'll go for it. We may have to go for some revenues at some point."
• From AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka: "The chairmen of the Deficit Commission just told working Americans to 'Drop Dead,'"
• From Ezra Klein: The co-chairmen have some interesting policy ideas for how to balance the budget, but as of yet, they've not made any discernible progress on the political deadlock preventing us from balancing the budget. And it's the deadlock, not the policy questions, that they were asked to solve.

Bonuses To The Brass -- And A Weird Ring

The union that represents most Social Security employees, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), has issued its October newsletter. The newsletter has a brief and very odd article concerning a peculiar ring that it says that the manager of the Santa Rosa, California field office wears. Of wider interest, the newsletter includes the results of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information on bonus awards to Social Security brass. Social Security took 15 months to respond to the FOIA request so it is already out of date. Here are the numbers:

Atlanta Region:
Paul Barnes, Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $22,000 December 24, 2006
Performance Award $22,000 March 14, 2008

Algeleon P. Rhodes, Asst/Deputy Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $8,000 January 22, 2006
Performance Award $8,000 December 24, 2006
Performance Award $8,125 March 14, 2008

Mary Ann Sloan, Regional Chief Counsel
Performance Award $10,000 January 22, 2006
Performance Award $14,000 December 24, 2006
Performance Award $14,750 March 14, 2008
SES Rank Award $32,680 December 30, 2008

Quittie C. Wilson, Asst Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $8,000 January 22, 2006
Performance Award $8,000 December 24, 2006

Boston Region:
Susan Harding, Deputy Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $9,000 January 22, 2006
Performance Award $11,000 December 24, 2006
Performance Award $12,500 March 14, 2008

Manuel Nunez, Asst Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $8,000 January 22, 2006
Performance Award $9,000 December 24, 2006
Performance Award $10,000 March 14, 2008

Manuel Vaz, Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $10,000 January 22, 2006
Performance Award $20,000 December 24, 2006
Performance Award $23,375 March 14, 2008
SES Rank Award $59,897 September 30, 2008

Chicago Region:
Kim L. Bright, Regional Chief Counsel
Performance Award $8,000 January 23, 2005
Performance Award $10,000 January 22, 2006

Danny L. Byrns, TSC Manager
Individual Suggestion $4,050 December 20, 2004

Donna L. Calvert, Regional Chief Counsel
Performance Award $10,000 December 24, 2006
Performance Award $7,700 March 14, 2008

Trudy A. Lewis, Asst Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $8,000 January 22, 2006
Performance Award $7,700 March 14, 2008

Mary D. Mahler, Asst Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $7,850 March 14, 2008

James F. Martin, Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $9,000 January 23, 2005
Performance Award $12,000 January 22, 2006
Performance Award $12,000 December 24, 2006
Performance Award $12,000 March 14, 2008

Marcia R. Mosley, Deputy Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $1,500 May 29, 2005
Performance Award $8,000 December 24, 2006
Performance Award $9,250 March 14, 2008

Dallas Region:
Earl Melebeck, Assistant/Deputy Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $10,000 January 22, 2006
Performance Award $10,000 December 24, 2006

Ramona Schuenemeyer, Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $24,000 January 22, 2006
Performance Award $8,000 December 24, 2006
Performance Award $21,750 March 14, 2008
SES Rank Award $32,975 September 30, 2008

Tina M. Waddell, Regional Chief Counsel
Performance Award $12,000 December 24, 2006
Performance Award $16,500 March 14, 2008

Denver Region:
Nancy A. Berryhill, Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $12,000 January 22, 2006
Performance Award $14,000 December 24, 2006
Performance Award $17,500 March 14, 2008

Yvette Keesee, Deputy Regional Chief Counsel
Performance Award $3,500 April 14, 2008

Katherine E. Kintz, Deputy Assistant Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $2,000 March 30, 2008

Martha J. Lambie, Deputy Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $8,125 March 14, 2008

Kansas City Region:
Michael Grochowski, Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $24,000 January 22, 2006
Performance Award $10,000 December 24, 2006
Performance Award $13,500 March 14, 2008

William K. Powell, Assistant/Deputy Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $8,000 December 24, 2006
Performance Award $8,500 March 14, 2008

Frank V. Smith III, Regional Chief Counsel
Performance Award $10,000 January 22, 2006

New York Region:
(No dates were given)
Beatrice Disman, Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $25,000
Performance Award $26,150

Paul M. Doersam, Deputy Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $15,000
Performance Award $16,500
Performance Award $15,000

Anne Jacobosky, Assistant Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $8,000
Performance Award $8,000

Philadelphia Region:
Steven G. DeMarco, Assistant Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $12,000 January 22, 2006
Performance Award $12,000 December 24, 2006
Performance Award $14,250 March 14, 2008

Lewis H. Kaiser, Deputy Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $12,000 December 24, 2006

Paula M. Newcomer, Deputy Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $8,125 March 14, 2008

San Francisco Region:
Stephen J. Breen, Assistant Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $8,000 January 22, 2006
Performance Award $8,000 December 24, 2006
Performance Award $8,500 March 14, 2008

Patricia E. Robidart, Deputy Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $8,000 December 24, 2006
Performance Award $8,200 March 14, 2008

Peter D. Spencer, Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $20,000 January 23, 2005
Performance Award $22,000 January 22, 2006
SES Rank Award $56,708 September 27, 2006
Performance Award $26,150 March 14, 2008

Seattle Region:
(No dates were given)
Carl L. Ruban, Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $10,000
Performance Award $10,000

Dennis S. Wulkan, Assistant Regional Commissioner
Performance Award $10,000
Performance Award $8,000