Michael Astrue's Paygrade

From Wikipedia:

Level I of the Executive Schedule

Level I of the Executive Schedule is the pay grade for cabinet officials. In addition to the fifteen cabinet secretaries, seven positions are listed in the Level I, of which only four (Administrator of the EPA, Director of the OMB, Director of the National Drug Control Policy, and the U.S. Trade Representative) are in the cabinet. The remaining three are:

Office	Incumbent
Chairman, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System	Ben Bernanke
Commissioner of the Social Security Administration	Michael Astrue
Director of National Intelligence	Mike McConnell

And the rate of pay for Level 1 of the Executive Schedule is $175,000 per year, according to the Office of Personnel Management.

Bristol Office Closing Amendment

From the Bristol Blog of the Bristol Press, although this amendment applies to any Social Security office, not just the Bristol, CT office:

Senators Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) and Chris Dodd (D-CT) took a significant step forward in the fight to prevent the Social Security Administration (SSA) from closing its field office in Bristol. The Senate unanimously passed an amendment introduced by both Senators to the appropriations bill that funds the Departments of Education, Labor and Health and Human Services (HHS) that would not allow SSA to close the Bristol office until they meet certain requirements (outlined below). The bill now must go to President Bush. ...

The amendment requires SSA to provide the following to Congress before closing the Bristol field office:

• A thorough analysis of the criteria used for selecting field offices for closure and how the SSA analyzes and considers factors relating to transportation and communication burdens faced by seniors and the disabled as a result of field office closures;

• A cost-benefit analysis of closing the office that takes the following into account:

• The savings anticipated by the closure;
• The burdens placed on seniors and the disabled;
• Any costs associated with replacing the services lost by closing the office.

Federal Register Alert

Social Security has sent over the following item to go in the Federal Register tomorrow:

Social security benefits and supplemental security income:

Cost-of-living increase, and other determinations, E7-21070

This may be a boring technical notice about non-discretionary matters, but it could contain something more interesting. I do not want to get people excited, but it could also contain an increase in the attorney fee cap.

Other Appropriations Amendments Affecting Social Security

Here is a list other amendments offered yesterday on the Senate floor to the Labor-HHS Appropriations bill affecting Social Security Administration and their fate:

Harkin (for Lieberman/Dodd) Amendment No. 3418 (to Amendment No. 3325), to prohibit the use of funds to close a field office of the Social Security Administration before submission of a report justifying the closure. Passed by unanimous consent

Ensign amendment No. 3342 (to amendment No. 3325), to prohibit the use of funds to administer Social Security benefit payments under a totalization agreement with Mexico. Passed 91-3

Ensign amendment No. 3352 (to amendment No. 3325), to prohibit the use of funds to process claims based on illegal work for purposes of receiving Social Security benefits. Passed 92-3

Senate Adds $150 Million For SSA

The Senate voted today for $150 million more in funding for the Social Security Administration, on top of the $125 million more than the President's budget that had already been reported out of committee. This means a total of $275 million more than the President's budget. This may be enough to not only prevent the hiring freeze, but to enable some additional hiring -- if it becomes final. See below for more information on what happened.

Remember that after the bill is finally passed by the Senate, it will go to a conference committee to work out differences with the bill passed by the House of Representatives. The House voted only for $100 million over the President's recommended budget. Even after the bill is finally passed by the Congress, the President has promised to veto it. Republicans in the House of Representatives have vowed to sustain the President's veto. The dispute over this appropriations bill could go on for several months and the ultimate outcome for Social Security and many other agencies is quite uncertain.

Fiscal 2008 Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations - Social Security Administration

Oct. 23, 2007

Senate Roll Call Vote 389

HR 3043

Bingaman, D-N.M., amendment no. 3440 to the Harkin, D-Iowa, substitute amendment no. 3325. The Bingaman amendment would increase by $150 million the amount appropriated for the Social Security Administration's administrative expenses account, offset by a reduction from the Medicare Physician Assistant and Quality Initiative Fund. The substitute would appropriate $605.5 billion in fiscal 2008, including $149.9 billion in discretionary spending, for the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS) and Education and for related agencies. It would provide $63 billion for the Education Department, $14.9 billion for the Labor Department and $479.1 billion for HHS.

Adopted by a vote of 88-6:
	Republicans	42-6
	Democrats	44-0 (Northern Democrats 39-0, Southern Democrats 5-0)
	Independents	2-0

Vote Key

YEAS (88)
REPUBLICANS (42)
Alexander, L. (TN)	Dole (NC)	McConnell (KY)
Barrasso (WY)	Domenici (NM)	Murkowski (AK)
Bennett (UT)	Ensign (NV)	Roberts (KS)
Bond (MO)	Enzi (WY)	Sessions, J. (AL)
Brownback (KS)	Graham (SC)	Shelby (AL)
Bunning (KY)	Grassley (IA)	Smith, G. (OR)
Chambliss (GA)	Hagel (NE)	Snowe (ME)
Cochran (MS)	Hatch (UT)	Specter (PA)
Coleman (MN)	Hutchison (TX)	Stevens (AK)
Collins (ME)	Isakson (GA)	Sununu (NH)
Corker (TN)	Kyl (AZ)	Thune (SD)
Cornyn (TX)	Lott (MS)	Vitter (LA)
Craig (ID)	Lugar (IN)	Voinovich (OH)
Crapo (ID)	Martinez (FL)	Warner (VA)
DEMOCRATS (44)
Akaka (HI)	Feinstein (CA)	Murray (WA)
Baucus, M. (MT)	Harkin (IA)	Nelson, Ben (NE)
Bayh (IN)	Inouye (HI)	Nelson, Bill (FL)
Bingaman (NM)	Johnson, Tim (SD)	Pryor (AR)
Boxer (CA)	Kerry (MA)	Reed, J. (RI)
Brown, S. (OH)	Klobuchar (MN)	Reid, H. (NV)
Byrd (WV)	Kohl (WI)	Rockefeller (WV)
Cantwell (WA)	Landrieu (LA)	Salazar, K. (CO)
Cardin (MD)	Lautenberg (NJ)	Schumer (NY)
Carper (DE)	Leahy (VT)	Stabenow (MI)
Casey (PA)	Levin, C. (MI)	Tester (MT)
Conrad (ND)	Lincoln (AR)	Webb (VA)
Dorgan (ND)	McCaskill (MO)	Whitehouse (RI)
Durbin (IL)	Menendez (NJ)	Wyden (OR)
Feingold (WI)	Mikulski (MD)
INDEPENDENTS (2)
Lieberman (CT)	Sanders (VT)
NAYS (6)
REPUBLICANS (6)
Allard (CO)	Coburn (OK)	Gregg (NH)
Burr (NC)	DeMint (SC)	Inhofe (OK)
DEMOCRATS (0)
INDEPENDENTS (0)
NOT VOTING (6)
REPUBLICANS (1)
McCain (AZ) ?
DEMOCRATS (5)
Biden (DE) ?	Dodd (CT) ?	Obama (IL) ?
Clinton (NY) ?	Kennedy, E. (MA) ?
INDEPENDENTS (0)

Social Security Press Release

A press release just issued by Social Security:

Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, today announced that the Social Security Administration published new rules that update its medical listings for people filing for disability benefits based on digestive disorders, including diseases of the liver, stomach and colon. Social Security’s medical listings are one of the key elements used in determining whether or not someone qualifies for disability benefits. The new rules are a key step in the Commissioner’s initiative to update and improve the medical listings used to evaluate people with disabilities. For the first time, the agency will use a composite of quantitative measures to ensure that people with severe liver disease receive benefits far more quickly than in the past.

“Social Security’s disability examiners are working with digestive listings that do not accurately reflect advances in the diagnosis and treatment of digestive disorders,” Commissioner Astrue said. “As a result many cases that should be resolved quickly are not being determined appropriately. The changes to our digestive listings are among the many steps we are taking in our effort to bring about accurate allowances for people who apply for Social Security disability.”

The changes to the digestive listings reflect state of the art advances in medical knowledge, treatment, and methods of evaluating digestive disorders and Social Security’s own program experience. In addition, Social Security has developed a new disability calculator tool that will be used for the evaluation of chronic liver disease in adults and children. This tool is the first of its kind used by the agency to help evaluate whether or not someone qualifies for disability.

“By improving our listings and predictors for digestive disorders, we can more appropriately identify those individuals who should qualify for disability benefits,” Commissioner Astrue noted. “Making these types of updates is one of the ways we can improve our service to the American people.”

While the agency is expanding its listings to include more digestive impairments, it is also removing some prior listings that no longer appropriately identify individuals who are disabled -- for example, the listing for peptic ulcer disease, which is rarely disabling. To learn more about the effects of various digestive disorders, please visit www.health.nih.gov/search.asp/5. To learn more about Social Security’s disability program visit www.socialsecurity.gov/disability.

The press release does not mention the following projected cost savings per fiscal year (FY) shown in the Federal Register notice on the new listings:

FY 2008 $10 million

FY 2009 $19 million

FY 2010 $27 million

FY 2011 $35 million

FY 2012 $42 million

Total for next five years $132 million

Make no mistake about it, this is a dramatic tightening of the rules and will result in far more claims being denied, particularly claimants suffering from liver disease.

Results Of Last Week's Unscientific Poll

Do you think that withholding of fees for non-attorney representatives of Social Security claimants is a good thing for claimants?

Yes (35)	57%
No (20)	33%
Don't Know/No opinion (6)	10%

Total Votes: 61

How Do You Square This?

Quotes from Michael Astrue's September 13, 2007 letter to Senator Tom Harkin, the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that deals with Social Security's budget:

This is America and it simply is not acceptable for Americans to wait years for a final decision on a claim. ...

In FY [fiscal year] 2009, we fully expect that the number of disability hearings pending will decrease. SSA's most optimistic projections are that the number of hearings pending will be reduced dramatically by FY 2013 under my plan ...

Hiring additional ALJs is an essential element in a successful plan for reducing the backlog. ...

What SSA will accomplish in FY 2008 is to build a firm foundation with automation improvements, ALJ hiring, and other initiatives described here, so that dramatic improvements will be achieved in FY 2009 -- a real turning of the tide. ...

However, Nancy Shor, executive director of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) reports that while Social Security hopes to bring in 150 new ALJs in FY 2008, the agency only plans to bring in 125 new ALJs in FY 2009. This total of 275 new ALJs in two years is little more than enough to cover predictable attrition in Social Security's ALJ corps between now and September 30, 2009. It is unlikely to be enough to get Social Security up to 1,250 ALJs, the number that Michael Astrue has said the agency needs -- and I think that all who are familiar with the situation would agree that it will take far more than 1,250 ALJs to accomplish "a real turning of the tide."

There is an inconsistency between the soaring words in Astrue's letter and the sad reality that he is unwilling to ask for a high enough budget to achieve his goals. His rosy scenario is based upon absurdly optimistic assumptions about productivity gains. Astrue's predecessor may have been foolish or self-deluded enough that she really believed that her plan would achieve miracles. No one believes that Michael Astrue is foolish or self-deluded. I cannot square his words and his actions.