Social Security Wants To Clarify

From a notice from Social Security to appear in the Federal Register tomorrow:

We are reopening for a limited purpose the comment period for the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that we published in the Federal Register on August 19, 2010 (75 FR 51336). We are reopening the comment period for 15 days to clarify and to seek additional public comment about an aspect of the proposed definitions of the terms “marked” and “extreme” in sections 12.00 and 112.00 of our Listing of Impairments (listings). We are reopening the comment period to accept comments about that issue only. We will not consider comments on any other aspects of the proposed listings for mental disorders that we receive during this reopened comment period. ...

Many commenters focused on two aspects of our proposed rule: 1) a definition of “marked” based on a standardized test score that is two standard deviations below the mean; and, 2) a separate definition of “marked” based on functioning that would be the equivalent of such a score if there were a standardized test. As discussed above, neither of these proposals represents new policy; both are based on our longstanding rules. However, some commenters said that our proposal would encourage our adjudicators to use standardized tests. Many said that we should drop all reference to standardized tests in the mental illness sections of the proposed rules and that the change would reduce the number of children and adults with serious mental disorders who qualify for disability benefits. Some who are already beneficiaries or who have family members who are beneficiaries were concerned that they would lose their benefits. ...

We did not intend for, and do not believe that, our proposed rules would do any of these things. ...

It looks like the other lines of criticism did not bother Social Security that much.

IE Fading Fast

Since there are signs that Social Security is having trouble making its internet services available to those who use browsers other than Internet Explorer, I thought I would take a look at the browsers my readers are using. The report is below. You need to note that about half of my readers are accessing this blog from computers at Social Security and all of them are using Internet Explorer. If you take them out of the equation, it looks as if Firefox is almost as big as Internet Explorer and that Safari and Chrome are growing rapidly.

Insisting that everyone use only Internet Explorer to access Social Security's online services is not an option.

1.	Internet Explorer		17,039	69.46%
2.	Firefox		3,993	16.28%
3.	Safari		2,327	9.49%
4.	Chrome		971	3.96%
5.	Opera		35	0.14%
6.	SeaMonkey		33	0.13%
7.	Mozilla Compatible Agent		27	0.11%
8.	Playstation 3		26	0.11%
9.	BlackBerry9530		23	0.09%
10.	BlackBerry8530		16	0.07%

What Are The Chances Of A Government Shutdown?

Jonathan Chait, writing in the New Republic:

I think a lot of people are underrating the potential for a government shutdown. Here is the dynamic. ...

You can't convince your base that the president is destroying freedom, undermining capitalism, and threatening 1920s Germany-style inflation, and then turn around and tell them to just wait things out for two years. ...

[I]t's worth delving a bit deeper into the GOP's historical understanding of the government shutdown [in 1995]. The Republican view of this episode -- and I remember this at the time, from my GOP staffer housemate -- was that the whole idea that Republicans shut down the government was a big lie concocted by the Clinton administration and abetted by the liberal media. Clinton, they believe, is the one who shut down the government. After all, if he had agreed to the Republican terms, there would have been no shutdown.

This is actually, as far as I can tell, a fairly unanimous belief among Republicans. ...

Are You Sure That Eleven Years And Nine Months Is An Adequate Test?

From today's Federal Register:

We are announcing the following demonstration project relating to the Social Security disability program under title II of the Social Security Act (Act). ...

In this project, we are testing the use of a benefit offset based on earnings as an alternative to certain rules that we currently apply to title II disability beneficiaries who work. Under the benefit offset, we will reduce title II disability benefits by $1 for every $2 that a beneficiary earns above a substantial gainful activity threshold amount. ...

DATES: The demonstration project will begin January 2011 and will end September 2022.

It seems obvious to me that Social Security isn't just slow walking this; they're slow crawling it. Why?

Social Security Workforce Increases

Below are the September 2010 figures for the number of employees at Social Security along with earlier figures for comparison purposes. Note that the workforce has increased by about 10% since Barack Obama became President.

I fear that we will be lucky to keep the workforce at this level over the next two years. Indeed, furloughs are not out of the question.

• September 2010 69,963
  
• June 2010 69,600
  
• March 2010 66,863
  
• December 2009 67,486
  
• September 2009 67,632
  
• June 2009 66,614
  
• March 2009 63,229
  
• December 2008 63,733
  
• September 2008 63,990
  
• September 2007 62,407
• September 2006 63,647
• September 2005 66,147
• September 2004 65,258
• September 2003 64,903
• September 2002 64,648
• September 2001 65,377
• September 2000 64,521
• September 1999 63,957
• September 1998 65,629

Fighting Back -- Does The Public Know Enough To Care?

From a law firm's blog:

At the Landau Law Shop, Herndon Disability lawyer Doug Landau was contacted by several families with bad outcomes as the result of using a volume law firm that failed to prepare their all important Federal cases. While we normally meet with clients, their families and prepare them well in advance of their court date, these firms meet their clients minutes before they are to appear before an Administrative Law Judge ! These cases tugged at our heart strings. In one case, the family was represented by a non-attorney "representative." Another family contacted Social Security lawyer Landau after their lawyer did not file the medical records they procured with the Federal Government and the case was lost.

Social Security Gives Ground On Standardized Testing; Comment Period On Mental Illness Listings To Be Reopened

A press release from Social Security:

The Social Security Administration announced today that it will publish a notice clarifying part of the recently proposed “Revised Medical Criteria for Evaluating Mental Disorders.”

In order to address some public misunderstanding, the notice will better explain how Social Security would consider the use of standardized testing when it determines disability for people who have a mental disorder.

The original public comment period ended on November 17th, but Social Security will reopen the comment period to provide an additional 15 days from the date of publication of the Federal Register notice to allow additional comment on our proposed policy regarding the use of standardized tests.

To read the entire set of proposals, the new notice about the proposed rule on testing, and all of the public comments, go to www.regulations.gov and use the search function to find Docket
No. SSA-2007-0101.

Note that there is no talk of clarifying what was meant by the change in the "B" criteria or the changes in the mental retardation listings.

The standardized testing language startled me at first but eventually I concluded that Social Security had not meant anything much by it. Other than for mental retardation and brain damage there simply are not any testing instruments for mental illness that Social Security could possibly justify using.

Keep your eyes on what Social Security does with the "B" criteria and the mental retardation listings. That's where the story is here. Giving ground on one point that you never really cared about can be a good way of defusing criticism on other points that you really do care about. I do not think that Social Security planned this but they do seem to have latched onto this as one way of disarming critics, particularly NAMI.

IOM Studies

The Institutes of Medicine (IOM) at the behest of Social Security has reviewed the disability listings on cardiovascular disorders and HIV-AIDS.

Let me give you a quick summary of the cardiovascular report: "Blah, blah, blah ... Whatever else you do, you MUST, MUST, MUST give us more money for research." The crack team of researchers recommended that Social Security consider making use of exercise testing in evaluating ischemic heart disease. In case you are not familiar with Social Security's cardiovascular listings, they have made extensive use of exercise testing in evaluating ischemic heart disease for decades.

The HIV-AIDS report is better. IOM recommends that "SSA should use CD4 count as an indicator of disability. Specifically, CD4 > 50 cells/mm3 is an indicator that a claimant’s HIV infection is disabling."

Is The COLA Fair?

From Tara Siegel Bernard's blog at the New York Times:

You could almost hear the collective groan from Social Security recipients after they learned that their benefits would not increase in 2011 because of the low rate of inflation. ...

But what retirees may find even more irksome is the fact that the measure that determines whether they’ll get a raise isn’t even based on the spending patterns of retirees — it’s based on the buying habits of working people. ...

So isn’t it only fair that cost-of-living adjustments for retirees be based on figures that are actually relevant to retirees? ...

Such an index already exists. Created by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the experimental index tracks the spending habits of households headed by individuals 62 or older ...

Called the CPI-E, it reflects the fact that older people spend a greater percentage of their budget on medical care (about 11 percent, compared with the 5 to 6 percent spent by everyone else) and housing, but less on categories like apparel or education. ...

How do they compare? The cost of living for the elderly has increased at a faster pace than the other indexes, but perhaps not quite as fast as you might think. Prices increased 36.1 percent for the elderly from December 1997 to December 2009, compared with 33.8 for the CPI-W and 33.9 percent for the index that includes some retired people, according to the paper. So, on average, the costs for the elderly grew about 0.1 percentage points more each year than the other indexes, Mr. Penner said.

Even if Social Security were pegged to the experimental index, however, it would not have resulted in a cost of living adjustment for the past two years, he added. ...

New Hearing Office In Phoenix

From KTAR:

Last year, Phoenix was selected for [a new hearing] office, which joined existing offices in Phoenix and Tucson.

Slowly but surely, it seems to be working. Since the new office began hearing cases in June, the reported wait time for a decision in the greater Phoenix area had dropped from 477 days to 405 days by late October, according to office director Michele Ridge....

The office expects to eventually hear an average of 350 to 400 cases a month.