Astrue Statement To Senate Special Aging Committee

Michael Astrue has been on Capitol Hill a lot. He testified at his Senate confirmation hearing and then at a House Social Security Subcommittee hearing just a few days after being confirmed. He also testified at a Senate Special Aging Committee hearing a day after the House Social Security Subcommittee hearing. His prepared statement for the Committee is very close to, if not identical to, his prepared statement for the House Social Security Subcommittee.

The hearing must have been an impromptu affair. It appears that the Senate Special Aging Committee did not even bother to send out a press release about the hearing.

AARP Poll On Social Security

From The Star Tribune of Minneapolis (but I cannot find anything about it on the AARP website):

A majority of Americans support potentially painful proposals to increase taxes and reduce benefits in order to ensure Social Security's long-term financial future, according to a poll released Wednesday.

"I think the public is ahead of Congress and the Washington debate when it comes to Social Security," said John Rother, policy director for AARP, the nation's largest organization for Americans 50 and older, which conducted the survey. ...

The poll found a strong bipartisan willingness to consider a range of changes, Rother said. A majority of respondents supported proposals which, taken together, would solve Social Security's long-term financial problem.

Appeals Council Processing Times

Try calling the Appeals Council at 703-605-8000 and then dial, in sequence, 1 -- 1 -- 3. You will get to a recording that gives information about processing times at the Appeals Council. The recording says that the average processing time is eight months, but that half of all appeals are disposed of in 105 days.

If you dispose of half of the cases in three and a half months but the average time is eight months, mathematically that other half must take a long time. The recording goes on to give some idea of the time frames for that other half, saying that it is "not unusual" for the Appeals Council to take up on 30 months to act on a case, but callers are assured that the Appeals Council will consider "expediting" cases that have been pending over 30 months, which is an unsubtle way of saying, "Please don't bug us about your case until it's been here at least two and a half years."

How are they able to dispose of some cases quickly but others take forever? The secret is picking out appeals that seem insubstantial, such as those filed by unrepresented claimants, and denying review on those quickly. That makes the average wait time seem not that bad, when one is looking merely at statistics, but it makes the wait time for serious appeals even longer.

There is no reason for the Appeals Council to quickly shove the easiest denials out the door other than to dress up its statistics, to make its backlogs appear less bad than they really are. The problem is that in the long run dressing up statistics to hide understaffing is self-defeating, because those preparing budgets do not realize how badly the agency needs more personnel. Playing statistical games like this is also a sign that agency personnel have internalized the notion that anything that is wrong at Social Security is due to agency disorganization and inefficiency. That is dangerous because it is untrue and because it undermines Social Security's institutional self-image. The message that this sends Social Security employees is that their employer is trying to hide its own ineptness. That message is devastating to employee morale and public service in the long run.

Another Wisconsin Flexiplace Problem

Some excerpts from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Julie Dable Stuart had been waiting more than three years for a decision on whether she qualifies for Social Security disability benefits when a large envelope arrived in the mail at her Waukesha home late last year. ...

The envelope contained copies of her medical information, work history and family information submitted to the Milwaukee Office of Disability Adjudication and Review in November 2004. Those documents were submitted as part of her request for a hearing to determine her eligibility for benefits, which had been denied when she first applied in 2003.

Upset and confused, she immediately called the Social Security office.

"They told me there was no way these files ever leave the building," Dable Stuart said Wednesday.

William Jarrett, a spokesman for the Social Security Administration, said administrators had no knowledge of Dable Stuart's phone call to the agency about the documents mailed to her home until contacted by a reporter Thursday.

To this day, who mailed the confidential documents remains a mystery.

Social Security employees gave her only bits and pieces of information about documents missing from her file, and she said she didn't realize the full scope of the problem until reading a Feb. 19 story in the Journal Sentinel [about files that a Social Security employee had lost after being allowed to take them home to work on as part of the Flexiplace program]. ...

In late December, Dable Stuart received a letter from Social Security that said the agency was "reconstructing your file, which includes updating, reviewing and analyzing current and past medical records," records show. The letter was signed by the employee who had lost the files. ...

In early February, Dable Stuart received another letter. This one said that "hearing-related documents" from her file "appear to have been stolen from an employee of the Milwaukee Office of Disability Adjudication and Review."

The Baltimore Sun And Social Security

The Social Security Administration is the largest single employer in the greater Baltimore area, according to Greaterbaltimore.org.

The major newspaper in Baltimore is the Baltimore Sun. That newspaper's website allows one to search through its archives. Try entering "Astrue." You find nothing. Michael Astrue was recently nominated and confirmed as Commissioner of greater Baltimore's largest employer. He had a nomination hearing and was a witness at another Congressional hearing where his agency came in for biting criticism. Somehow, all of this escaped the attention of the Baltimore Sun. Can you imagine the Baltimore Sun ignoring a new president at Johns Hopkins University, which is probably the second largest employer in the Baltimore area? The Baltimore Sun is not the only local newspaper ignoring the Social Security Administration. Enter "Astrue" in the Washington Post search engine and you also get no hits.

One might think that someone at Social Security's Press Office would have telephoned someone at the Baltimore Sun and Washington Post to call this oversight to their attention.

Unfunded Liabilities

From USA Today:

The U.S. government has a bigger unfunded liability for military and civil servant retirement benefits ($4.7 trillion) than it does for Social Security ($4.6 trillion).

Another Columbus Dispatch Article On Backlogs

The Columbus Dispatch has another article on the backlogs at Social Security. Here are a couple of excerpts:

To tens of thousands of Ohioans who have applied for Social Security disability, waiting for benefits has become a living thing: menacing, frustrating, interminable.

Waiting two years for an appeal hearing chewed up Donald Riley’s income and his health, eventually sending the former diesel mechanic from Johnstown to Mount Carmel East hospital where yesterday he was recovering from his second heart attack.

Waiting since early 2005 drove Dorothy Siders of Columbus to bankruptcy and threatens to steal her home through foreclosure. It’s all she has left.

"It’s not like I haven’t worked all my life since I was 16 years old," Siders said. "If I could work, I would. …What are you going to do? You just feel hopeless." ...

Columbus attorney John R. Allen, who has been handling Social Security disability cases for three decades, said the long waiting time is an extreme hardship for claimants and their families.

"There is nothing worse than meeting with a client, knowing with some likelihood that we are going to prevail, and having to tell him that he’ll have to wait at least two years for benefits. Most have no idea how they are going to survive."

Chief Of Staff Hired

The ALJ Improvement Board has the following report that Commissioner Astrue has hired a chief of staff:

David V. Foster, Chief of Staff, serves as the principal advisor to the Commissioner of Social Security. He is the Commissioner’s liaison to the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Personnel Management, Cabinet-level Agencies, Members of Congress, international organizations, the Social Security Advisory Board and executives of state and local governments. Additionally, he is the Chair of the Agency’s Executive Resources Board.

Mr. Foster has held high-level positions in the federal government, having served in various capacities at the White House, the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, DC and the United States Attorney's Office in Alexandria, Virginia. In the private sector, Mr. Foster has worked extensively in the health care field as the head of government relations for biotechnology firms and as counsel for the National Leadership Coalition on Health Care. He also has chaired committees for the American Bar Association, the Federalist Society and the Biotechnology Industry Organization.

Mr. Foster is a magna cum laude graduate of Bowdoin College and received his J.D. from Northeastern University.