Welfare For People Too Lazy To Work?

     From Dylan Matthews writing for Vox:

Over half the people on disability are either anxious or their back hurts,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said in 2015. “Join the club. Who doesn’t get up a little anxious for work every day and their back hurts?”

It’s a common line from conservative politicians: that the Social Security Disability Insurance program is just welfare for people too lazy to work.

Many of those politicians haven’t spent much time at all actually talking to the people they’re denouncing — people like Randy Pitts.

Before his body started to fail him, Pitts, a 43-year-old in Lake County, Tennessee, was a public servant. He loved his job as a 911 dispatcher for the county’s emergency services; he recounts with pride the story of the day he kept residents calm as trees crashed around them in an ice storm. He was elected county commissioner, a position he used to champion solar power.

Then in 2013, Pitts, who already had moderate arthritis and herniated discs in his back, was diagnosed with renal failure, an extreme form of kidney disease — the beginning of a chain of events that would leave Pitts and his family dependent on Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), which offers assistance for workers who develop disabilities and illnesses that render them incapable of working any longer.

Pitts’s renal failure led to a medical emergency that left him with what a doctor told him was likely post-traumatic stress disorder. Too weak to stand and talk, he campaigned for reelection but narrowly lost his seat. At his dispatcher job, he struggled to remain calm and form clear sentences to reassure callers. In 2015, struggling mentally and physically, he had to give up his job; these days, he’s unable to dress himself without help from his teenage son.

Pitts’s son works, as does his daughter, who is in college. But the family’s major lifeline is the $1,196 per month Pitts gets through Social Security Disability Insurance — which has been, over the past several years, under intense political assault from the likes of Sen. Paul....

Stereotypes about recipients wasting or not needing the money are common even among people on the program. ...

After visiting Tennessee, talking to SSDI recipients across the state, and scouring the rich economic literature on the program, I was left with a starkly different conclusion from the prevailing criticism. SSDI is not a gusher of free federal money for lazy people with backaches. It’s a stingy, hard-to-access program that helps some of the country’s most desperate citizens scrape by; applying takes months or years, and more than 60 percent of applicants wind up being rejected anyway. ...

According to Bloomberg’s Joshua Green, nine of the 10 counties with the highest share of working-age adults on SSDI voted for Trump, with each of those nine giving him at least 70 percent of the vote; all but one of those nine counties are in Appalachian West Virginia, Virginia, and Kentucky ...

The regions where people are more likely to be on disability map onto objective measures of health status — like years lost due to early death, diabetes and heart disease rates, and even cancer rates. SSDI serves people who are desperately sick or injured; its beneficiaries have a mortality rate triple that of other people their age, and one-fifth of men and one-sixth of women on the program die within five years of first getting benefits. It’s no accident that it’s concentrated in areas where that kind of severe hardship is also concentrated. ...

Only about a fifth of people on SSDI lack a high school diploma, but education nonetheless is a powerful predictor of the program’s geographic distribution. That’s largely because low levels of education are correlated with poor health. ...

Conn Story Refuses To Die

     To repeat, the Social Security Administration is planning to review the cases of 2,000 more of Eric Conn's former clients.
     And, there's this, "Officials say additional information has been received from Conn which implicated another bribery scheme. This scheme involves at least one other judge."

Lucia To Be Heard In April

     There is now confirmation that the Lucia case on the constitutionality of Administrative Law Judges (ALJs), as presently appointed, will be heard by the Supreme Court in April of this year. There's an accelerated briefing schedule.

     I don't think the Supreme Court should find ALJs unconstitutional. I don't think they will. If they do find ALJs unconstitutional, they may find some way to exclude Social Security ALJs although I don't know how. If you're off on the sort of excursion into pure logic, possibly tinged by a strong desire to prevent regulation of businesses, that leads you to find that ALJs are unconstitutional in other agencies, I don't see how you'd be concerned about the practical consequences for Social Security. Exempting Social Security removes the pure logic part and makes the desire to hinder regulation of businesses obvious. The pretense that your actions were dictated by the Constitution would be hard to maintain.

Here We Go Again

     The Social Security Administration is planning to review the cases of 2,000 more of Eric Conn's former clients.
     And, there's this, "Officials say additional information has been received from Conn which implicated another bribery scheme. This scheme involves at least one other judge."

EDPNAs

     I spotted a new Social Security acronym recently, EDPNA. At least, it was new to me. It stands for Eligible for Direct Pay Non-Attorney.

Is Social Security As An Independent Agency Constitutional?

     The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia held yesterday in PHH Corporation v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that independent agencies with a single head appointed for a fixed term of office are constitutional. The argument was that this arrangement encroaches on the President's constitutional powers. If you thought that the question of whether independent agencies are constitutional had been decided in the affirmative during the New Deal, you'd be right when it comes to independent agencies headed by a multi-member board but there has never been any decision on the issue when it comes to independent agencies headed with a single head appointed to a fixed term of office. I really don't see the distinction and neither did this Court but I expect that the right wing effort to wipe out independent agencies will continue. This particular issue may eventually come before the Supreme Court.

     Of course, the Social Security Administration is an independent agency with a single head appointed for a fixed term of office. However, it would be hard to raise the constitutionality  issue now for the Social Security Administration because the agency currently has an acting Commissioner who could be removed by the President at any time.

Hearing On Social Security Service For Vets

     From a press release:

House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Sam Johnson (R-TX) announced today that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing entitled “Ensuring Social Security Serves America’s Veterans” on Wednesday, February 7, at 9:00 AM in room 2253 of the Rayburn House Office Building. At the hearing, Members will examine the effectiveness of the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) initiatives to reduce processing times and expedite claims for certain veterans, as well as efforts by the agency to hire veterans.

     Our vets deserve a lot but do they deserve special treatment by the Social Security Administration? Shouldn't the goal be to provide good service to everyone?

Wanna Read All About What Social Security Wants From De-Dup? Probably Not, But Here It Is Anyway

     The agency has put out 98 pages of detail about what it wants from a computer program designed to remove duplicate medical exhibits from Social Security disability claim files.

Make Of It What You Will

     Donald Trump has now given two addresses to Joint Sessions of Congress. He has yet to use the words "Social Security" in either address. He hasn't used the word "Medicare" either.

Social Security Starting To Respond To Supreme Court Case On ALJ Constitutionality

     From Emergency Message EM-18003:

This emergency message directs administrative law judges (ALJs) to acknowledge Appointments Clause arguments raised in connection with the appeal of an administrative action without discussing or making any findings on any such arguments. This message also provides instructions in the Case Processing and Management System (CPMS) and the Appeals Review Processing System (ARPS) for flagging cases in which claimants or representatives raise such arguments. ...
[F]our plaintiffs challenging their denials of benefits in Social Security Administration (SSA) cases have raised in one district court the constitutionality of the manner in which SSA’s ALJs are appointed. The district court has stayed the Appointments Clause issue pending action by the Supreme Court in Lucia and Bandimere [the Supreme Court cases concerning SEC ALJs], while litigation of the disability issues in the cases proceed....If a claimant or representative challenges at a hearing the constitutionality of the manner in which SSA appoints its ALJs ...
What will an adjudicator do if a claimant or representative challenges the constitutionality of the manner in which SSA appoints its ALJs?

1. Challenge made orally at the Hearing level

If a claimant or representative challenges at a hearing the constitutionality of the manner in which SSA appoints its ALJs,
ALJs will only respond, “the hearing decision [/dismissal] will acknowledge that the argument was raised.” Because SSA lacks the authority to finally decide constitutional issues such as these.
ALJs will not discuss or make any findings related to the Appointments Clause issue on the record.

When issuing the hearing decision or dismissal, ALJs will acknowledge that the issue was raised by adding the following language “The claimant[/representative] also raised a challenge to the manner in which I was appointed as an administrative law judge under the Appointments Clause to the Constitution. I do not have the authority to rule on that challenge and do not address it further in this decision[/dismissal].”

2. Challenge made in writing at the hearing level

If a claimant or representative challenges in writing the constitutionality of the manner in which SSA appoints its ALJs,
ALJs will acknowledge that the issue was raised by adding the following language to the hearing decision or dismissal “The claimant[/claimant’s representative] also raised a challenge to the manner in which I was appointed as an administrative law judge under the Appointments Clause to the Constitution. I do not have the authority to rule on that challenge and do not address it further in this decision[/dismissal].”
ALJs will not otherwise discuss or make any findings related to the Appointments Clause issue.

3. Challenge made at the Appeals Council (AC) level

As challenges of the constitutionality of the appointment of SSA’s ALJs are outside the purview of the administrative adjudication, the AC will not acknowledge, make findings related to, or otherwise discuss the Appointments Clause issue. ..

If a claimant or representative raises an Appointments Clause issue, Office of Hearings Operations (OHO) and Office of Appellate Operations (OAO) staff will flag the case in CPMS and ARPS by adding the case characteristic “LUCI,” which can be found in both systems under the “Other” case characteristic type.
ALJs who receive appointment clause objections will notify hearing office management. Hearing office management will either add the LUCI case characteristic in CPMS or delegate to staff to do so....