Jan 15, 2015
The "Hop Out Of Your Truck" Test
Senator Rand Paul on disability:
If you believe that government paid disability insurance benefits are wrong, say so. Don't resort to outrageous misrepresentations of the program you oppose.
What I tell people is, if you look like me and you hop out of your truck, you shouldn’t be getting your disability check. Over half of the people on disability are either anxious or their back hurts. Join the club ... Who doesn’t get up a little anxious for work every day and their back hurts. Everybody over 40 has a little back pain.Over half of all applications for Social Security disability benefits do come from people whose primary health problem is either mental or musculoskeletal. This includes people disabled by schizophrenia, traumatic brain injury, multiple amputations and spinal problems causing paraplegia. "Either anxious or their back hurts" is misleading. It's like describing someone with no light perception in either eye as being a little near sighted. One problem is that many on the right believe that what Paul said is true. A bigger problem is that Paul probably believes that what he said is true.
If you believe that government paid disability insurance benefits are wrong, say so. Don't resort to outrageous misrepresentations of the program you oppose.
Update: Paul has received a fair amount of criticism for his comments. His response is that those criticizing him are " ... arguing for fraud ... I'm arguing for eliminating fraud." That makes sense only if you believe that the vast majority of people drawing disability benefits are doing so fraudulently.
I sometimes think that the only test for disability that folks like Paul would accept is that it must be immediately obvious to anyone at any time that the person is disabled and also that it must also be immediately obvious to anyone at any time that the person is suffering badly.
Jan 14, 2015
Coburn Angry That Conn Not Prosecuted
From the Huntington, WV Herald-Dispatch:
The Oklahoma senator who led a Congressional investigation into alleged disability fraud at Huntington's Social Security Office took a parting shot at justice officials for not prosecuting those involved.
Tom Coburn, R-Okla., delivered his criticism from the Senate floor as he walked into retirement last month. He singled out U.S. Attorneys in southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky, saying both recused themselves from prosecuting Eric Christopher Conn.
House and Senate investigations targeted Conn, a disability claims attorney near Pikeville, Ky., as well as former Social Security administrative law judges David B. Daugherty and Charles Paul Andrus.
Coburn argued the alliance of Conn and Daugherty, coupled with lacking oversight from Andrus, amounted to a "slam dunk." ...
The Dec. 16, 2014, floor speech called it a failure of the Justice Department to be "handed an absolutely, totally perfect case" and not prosecute those taking advantage of the system. Coburn particularly took issue with Conn's continued ability to represent disability claimants before the Social Security Administration.
"I wonder what (Conn) has over them," he said of the prosecutors. "I wonder what it is when you have a closed case, a prosecutorial case that you have to do no work on and the U.S. Attorneys will not prosecute a thief of the highest order." ...
Coburn's floor speech indicates the matter now rests with Social Security Inspector General Patrick P. O'Carroll, Jr., who the now retired senator said was trying to convince the Justice Department's criminal division in Washington to take action.
The Kentucky Bar Association has apparently decided against trying to discipline Conn. So far, Social Security hasn't disciplined Conn. Neither of those cases would require proof beyond a reasonable doubt, just by the preponderance of the evidence. And, yet, Coburn is certain that the case against Conn is a "slam dunk", "absolutely, totally perfect" that could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal court? Maybe the case isn't as airtight as Coburn thinks. Maybe Coburn should stick to medicine and politics and leave prosecutorial decisions to prosecutors.
"Concerned About The Public Perception"
From CBS News:
People who owe old debts to the Social Security Administration are getting a reprieve this tax season: The federal government won't be seizing their tax refunds.Acting Social Security Commissioner Carolyn Colvin suspended a debt collection program last spring in which thousands of people had tax refunds seized to recoup overpayments that happened more than a decade ago. ...
Following a review, the agency said Monday it will continue suspending the program this tax season while officials explore possible changes.
"The commissioner is concerned about the public perception about the way we're running this program," said Pete Spencer, Social Security's deputy commissioner for budget, finance, quality and management. ...
Jan 13, 2015
Number Of People Drawing Social Security Disability Benefits Leveling Off
As of November 2013 there were 8,941,660 people drawing Disability Insurance Benefits (DIB) under the Social Security Act. As of November 2014, the most recent month for which numbers are available, there were 8,956,269 people drawing DIB, an increase of 14,609 people or less than a fifth of one percent, from the year before. By contrast, the number of people drawing DIB went up by 136,307 or 2% between November 2012 and November 2013. In each of the last two months reported, the number of people drawing DIB has actually gone down.
Social Security's Office of Chief Actuary had forecast that there would be 9,014,000 people drawing DIB by the end of 2014. Unless there was a huge jump in the number of DIB recipients last month, the forecast was off by a not insignificant number.
We'll see how 2015 and 2016 go but it's entirely possible that the number of people drawing DIB will be going down as the debate rages in 2016 on what to do about the impending exhaustion of the Disability Trust Fund. Also, it's not clear just how impending that exhaustion date will be in 2016.
This Discussion Should Really Set The Stage For The Disability Trust Fund Debate
From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:
Roswell [GA] Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Price intends to tackle big-ticket entitlement programs as the new chairman of the House Budget Committee — including Social Security.
In a speech at the Heritage Action for America “Conservative Policy Summit” on Monday, Price said he was excited to work with a GOP-led Senate to end the “muddled mess” of the last few years. ...
“So all the kinds of things you know about – whether it’s means testing, whether it’s increasing the age of eligibility. The kind of choices — whether it’s providing much greater choices for individuals to voluntarily select the kind of manner in which they believe they ought to be able to invest their working dollars as they go through their lifetime. All those things ought to be on the table and discussed.”
Price consistently framed entitlement changes as Republican desires to “save, secure and strengthen” the programs, given their rising costs that are a big driver of future deficit projections. ...
He said Republicans should not fear the politics of such changes — pointing out that the Romney-Ryan ticket won seniors in 2012, despite Democrats’ “Mediscare” tactics around the Ryan proposal for a voucher-like premium support program for Medicare. ...
Jan 12, 2015
Senators Oppose Cuts In Disability Benefits
This is the text of a letter sent by Senators Ron Wyden (Ore.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Dick Durbin (Ill.),
Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), Patty Murray (Wash.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.) and
Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Vermont independent Bernie Sanders:
Dear Leader McConnell et al:
This week, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives took an unprecedented step toward cutting Social Security benefits for millions of Americans with disabilities, including veterans and children. As you consider what legislation Congress must pass this year, and how to maintain good governance of the United States Senate, we ask you not to pursue this highly partisan rule change.
We are deeply concerned that the rule change in the House will impact millions of Social Security beneficiaries. According to its actuaries, the Social Security Disability Trust Fund will be unable to pay full disability benefits starting as early as 2016, meaning that legislative action will be necessary to protect the benefits of nearly 11 million Americans. Instead of taking responsible action to address this issue, House Republicans acted according to their extreme ideology and put these benefits at risk by adopting a legislative rule change that creates a point of order against simple bipartisan technical corrections (called reallocations) to adjust the financing of the Social Security Disability Trust Fund.
This move is a particularly audacious in light of the fact that past reallocations have been commonplace and bipartisan. In fact, Congress has reallocated taxes between the Social Security retirement and disability trust funds 11 times before, in both directions, when it was needed to put either program on stronger footing.
The last reallocation occurred in 1994 and was passed without opposition by both the Senate and the House of Representatives. After that reallocation, it was projected that the Disability Trust Fund would be depleted in 2016 – so the need to adjust the trust fund’s financing is not a surprise or cause for alarm. There were no accusations of mismanagement then, or the 4 times it was used under President Reagan, because this country has traditionally managed Social Security as a whole. It is cynical to try and pit retirees and beneficiaries with disabilities against each other, as the House Republican rule change attempts to do.
An earnest debate on how to improve the solvency of the Social Security Trust Funds is needed, and we look forward to working together to find bipartisan solutions. However, House Republicans have eliminated a common sense action to ensure that Americans with disabilities who receive Social Security benefits are held harmless as Congress debates that issue.
Holding hostage the Social Security benefits of any American, particularly those of the 9 million Americans with disabilities who are at risk in the coming years, is an untenable proposition. It only increases the chances of yet another unnecessary manufactured crisis, akin to shutting down the government or threatening the full faith and credit of the United States. We ask that you speak out and forcibly reject the House Republican rule in order to take this reckless concept off the table and ensure Americans with disabilities that they can count on their government to act responsibly.
Can The President Be Trusted On Social Security?
From Dylan Scott writing at TPM:
TPM asked multiple times last week for the White House's position on the House action, but never received a formal response, a stark contrast to the loud public pronouncements of Brown, Warren, and others. It also invokes the uneasy relationship between the White House and Social Security advocates, who were dismayed by Obama's willingness to accept cuts to the program during the 2011 grand bargain talks with House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH).
"Advocates do not trust the president on Social Security," Monique Morrissey, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, told TPM last week. "If he blinks and they message this right, it could be something."
Nancy Altman, co-director of Social Security Works, told TPM that while the Obama administration "hasn't been great on this issue," she sees encouraging signs in Obama's recent appetite for confrontation on issues like immigration.
"Our hope is that he'll be that way on Social Security, too," she said. "But if you look at past history, you can't be confident that that's what will happen."
ALJ Daugherty Agreed To Voluntary Disbarment
I missed this earlier. Back in May 2014, retired Administrative Law Judge David Daugherty agreed to voluntary disbarment. It had been alleged that Daugherty approved claims that didn't meet government guidelines, falsified
time sheets and improperly assigned attorney Eric Conn's cases to
himself.
So far, as best I can tell, despite considerable publicity given to the case, neither
Daugherty nor Conn has been charged with any crime. While the Kentucky Bar Association was looking at the allegations against Conn in 2013, I cannot find any indication that they ever took action against him.
Jan 11, 2015
Driving While Blind
ABC ran a report Friday night on a man drawing Social Security disability benefits on account of blindness who was working without telling the agency and also driving. Maybe this is how Republicans plan to stigmatize Social Security disability recipients -- hidden videos of isolated individuals committing fraud. Sounds weak to me but maybe it will work. There are plenty of videos of people robbing convenience stores but we aren't planning to close them.
By the way, I've had a couple of clients over the years who were unquestionably blind as that term is defined in the Social Security Act but who drove occasionally. They weren't defrauding Social Security but they were endangering everyone on the roads. Blindness as defined in the Social Security Act isn't the same as complete loss of vision. 20/200, the most important component of the definition of blindness in the Social Security Act, means things that are 20 feet away are seen about as well as a normally sighted person sees them at 200 feet but people with 20/200 vision still have some vision. I told the blind clients to stop driving, by the way.
Jan 10, 2015
Is This The Plan?
Mark Miller at Reuters writes that "House leaders appear to be maneuvering to push through an SSDI [Social Security Disability Insurance] fix during the lame duck session following the 2016 elections."
If this is the plan, it's not much of a plan. The timing of the exhaustion of the Disability Trust Fund probably won't come right in the December 2016/January 2017 time period. Even if it does, Social Security disability would become a red hot issue for the 2016 election. Do Republicans really want that?
Jan 9, 2015
How Does GOP Pass A Bill Cutting Social Security Disability?
To clarify something I posted yesterday, I don't really think it's possible that the House of Representatives will end the Lump Sum Death Payment (LSDP) in order to allow transfers from the Retirement to the Disability Trust Fund. That would work under the rules they just passed but, no, even though ending the LSPD makes perfect sense -- the payments are so tiny they it probably costs more to administer them than is actually paid out -- Republicans would never end the LSDP because they're afraid of being accused of cutting Social Security. And there's the problem for Republicans. If they're afraid of being accused of cutting Social Security if they end the LSDP, a tiny benefit that ought to be eliminated, won't they be afraid they'll be accused of cutting Social Security if they really cut Social Security disability benefits? No doubt they tell themselves that Social Security disability isn't "really" Social Security but do they "really" believe that? More important, do voters "really" believe that? I'm pretty sure that if Republicans cut Social Security disability they'll see campaign ads run against them for cutting Social Security. They can tell everyone that didn't "really" cut Social Security since Social Security disability isn't "really" Social Security. They can also claim that Social Security disability is full of fraud (even though the evidence shows that isn't true) but that's not likely to help. So, how are Republicans really going to pass a bill cutting Social Security disability?I have no idea.
Hardly A Booming Business
The final 2014 figures for payments of fees to attorneys and others representing Social Security claimants are in. These are amounts paid by the claimants themselves out of their back benefits. Social Security is only a conduit. The total amount paid in 2014 was $1,140,183,312.10. This is 8% less than the 2013 total of $1,226,129,697.74. Fee payments have been going down since 2010. The total fee payments per year are now down 20% from their 2010 peak.
Jan 7, 2015
Pithy
The Wonkette title says it all: New GOP Congress Pretty Sure All You ‘Disabled’ ‘Folks’ Are Fakers Anyway, So Suck It.
Weak Jujitsu
Here's the actual language of the new rule in the House of Representatives:
(1) During the One Hundred Fourteenth Congress, it shall not be in order to consider a bill or joint resolution, or an amendment thereto or conference report thereon, that reduces the actuarial balance by at least .01 percent of the present value of future taxable payroll of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund established under section 201(a) of the Social Security Act for the 75-year period utilized in the most recent annual report of the Board of Trustees provided pursuant to section 201(c)(2) of the Social Security Act.
(2) EXCEPTION.—Paragraph (1) shall not apply to a measure that would improve the actuarial balance of the combined balance in the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund for the 75-year period utilized in the most recent annual report of the Board of Trustees provided pursuant to section 201(c)(2) of the Social Security Act.
Under
this rule, even the most minor change that reduces either disability or
retirement payments would allow for the transfer of funds between the
two trust funds. Eliminating the lump sum death payment, for instance, would be enough to allow the transfer between the two trust funds and every knowledgeable person knows that should be eliminated. My idea of playing around with the benefit offset for
those dually eligible for disability benefits and retirement or survivor
benefits wouldn't work since that would leave the actuarial
balance of the combined trust funds unchanged -- although that plus some minor
change reducing either disability or retirement benefits, such as eliminating the lump sum death payment, would work.
Reversing the offset for those dually eligible for Disability Insurance
Benefits and SSI would work since it would reduce the combined balance
of the two funds by shifting some costs to SSI. Nobody's benefits would
be cut. Nobody's taxes would be increased. There would be no effect upon
the federal deficit.The windfall offset already reduces Disability Insurance Benefits for back SSI benefits. Just extend that to ongoing payments and the problem is solved. In other words, it will be easy to work around this rule. You don't have to cut anyone's benefits. If you do make a cut, it can be quite a minor cut.
That Jujitsu Move Doesn't Work
My first thought on hearing of the House rule change was alarm. My second thought was that this changes nothing. This is just another in a long line of efforts by Republicans to find a jujitsu move which would cut Social Security but which would force Democrats to do the cutting. Republicans would then blame the Democrats for the cuts. Why is the risk that Social Security disability benefits will be cut dramatically a motivation for Congressional Democrats to vote for a bill that cuts Social Security benefits dramatically? It's a dramatic cut either way. You're just voting for the pain. For that matter, what's the motivation for Congressional Republicans to vote for a bill that would cut Social Security benefits dramatically? Forget trying to pass such a bill in the House of Representatives. Forget even trying to vote such a bill out of the House Ways and Means Committee. No such bill would even find a sponsor!
In any case, House rules can be changed by the House at any time by a simple majority vote. Even within the terms of the rule, the House could pass a bill that would cut no benefits, raise no taxes and transfer no money between trust funds but which would prevent anyone from losing Social Security disability benefits. All they would have to do is to play around with benefit offsets for disability recipients who are dually eligible for Social Security retirement or survivor benefits or SSI.
Is There Much Of This?
From some television station in Colorado that doesn't put its real name on its website:
Fifty-seven-year-old Galdino Juarez depends on his Social Security benefits. He's been in a wheelchair for a decade.
According to two letters he's received from the Social Security Administration, the agency says it will stop paying Juarez because the Department of Homeland Security informed them Juarez has been deported.
However, DHS confirmed to 9NEWS that Juarez is a lawful permanent resident. He has been a legal resident and a green card holder for 35 years.
Jan 6, 2015
Don't Know What He's Talking About
From a press release issued by Senator Sherrod Brown:
Today, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) condemned a dangerous new rule in the House of Representatives that would undermine Social Security by attacking Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). The unprecedented rule change would prevent the House of Representatives from passing clean reallocations of the Social Security Trust Fund.
“Today, House Republicans are trying to change rules that have been in place for decades as a way to attack social insurance,” Brown said. “Rather than solve the short-term problems facing the Social Security Disability program as we have in the past, Republicans want to set the stage to cut benefits for seniors and disabled Americans.”Update: Here's a little more on what he's talking about but, really, I still don't know what's being proposed. If they're proposing that the projected shortfall in the Social Security Disability Trust Fund can only be made up by cutting Social Security disability benefits, they're setting up a major issue for the 2016 election.
Final Rules On Non-Attorney Representation
From today's Federal Register:
We are adopting, with two revisions, our interim final rules that implemented amendments to the Social Security Act (Act) made by the Social Security Disability Applicants' Access to Professional Representation Act of 2010 (PRA). The interim final rules made permanent the direct fee payment rules for eligible non-attorney representatives under titles II and XVI of the Act and for attorney representatives under title XVI of the Act. They also revised some of our eligibility policies for non-attorney representatives under titles II and XVI of the Act. Based on public comment and subsequent inquiries, we are revising our rules to clarify that an eligible non- attorney representative's liability insurance policy must include malpractice coverage. We are also reaffirming that a business entity legally permitted to provide the required insurance in the States in which the non-attorney representative conducts business must underwrite the policies.
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