Disability Illusions

From a press release issued by "America's Health Insurance Plans:"

Most Baby Boomers underestimate their risk of suffering a disability that would cause them to miss work for an extended period of time, according to a new survey conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Americas Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). ...

The survey found that just over a third of Baby Boomers think the chances of becoming disabled due to illness or injury is 5 percent or less, a slight majority think the chances are 10 percent or less, and two-thirds think the chances are 20 percent or less. In reality, a worker has a 30% chance of suffering a disabling injury or illness causing him or her to miss three or more months of work before reaching retirement, according to the Social Security Administration. ...

One of the reasons Baby Boomers underestimate their risk is because they are unaware of the most common causes of disability, mistakenly believing that injuries cause more disabilities than illnesses. According to the survey, Boomers believe the most common causes of disability are back, muscle or joint problems (26 percent), injuries on the job (18 percent) and injuries off the job (16 percent). In actuality, research shows that the most common causes of disability are illnesses such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

Even policymakers share many of the same illusions, persistently believing that rehabilitation is possible for a high percentage of Social Security disability benefits recipients -- because they believe that a high percentage of the disabled will get better because they became disabled as a result of trauma. The reality is that the vast majority of disability is caused by disorders that just keep getting worse, making rehabilitation impossible.

Michigan Social Security Section Issues Newsletter

The Social Security Section of the State Bar of Michigan has issued its Winter 2008 Newsletter.

Asheville Citizen-Times Op Ed Piece

From an op ed piece in the Asheville, NC Citizen-Times:

Americans who become disabled prior to retirement are forced to wait a disgraceful amount of time to receive the benefits they are entitled to. These taxpaying citizens deserve a vastly different and more just system of determining their disability. Most of these people have paid into the system for their entire lives through paycheck deductions to support the system that now betrays their trust.

The current system requires disabled citizens to wait an average of 512 days for a final decision by an administrative law judge as to whether they meet Social Security disability standards. Many others, including a large number of my clients, wait even longer for their day in court, losing homes, declaring bankruptcy and losing trust in the system to decide their case in a fair and timely manner. ...

This vicious and harsh attack on Americans who are least able to defend themselves must stop. The current Congress is finally taking steps to reduce this nightmare for disabled Americans. All of us should support increased funding and measures to make sure that the disabled citizens of our country receive the dignity and justice they deserve in resolving their disability applications. No one should be permitted to be kicked so hard for so long when they are physically and/or mentally unable to work.

Waiting In Colorado

KOAA in Pueblo, Colorado is running a story on a local man who is suffering through the long wait for his hearing on a Social Security disability claim. See the story in streaming video. By the way, interesting ad the TV station runs before giving you the streaming video.

Reinstatement Of Prototype and Single Decisionmaker In Boston Region

From today's Federal Register:

Effective March 23, 2008, we are reinstating New Hampshire as a ``prototype'' State in the disability redesign tests we are conducting under the authority of our regulations. We are also reinstating Maine and Vermont as States that use ``single decisionmakers'' under the same authority. These three States stopped participating in the disability redesign tests on August 1, 2006, when they began to participate in the Disability Service Improvement (DSI) initiative that we have been testing in our Boston region since that date. On January 15, 2008, we published a final rule in the Federal Register suspending the Federal Reviewing Official review level of the DSI process. The final rule will be effective on March 23, 2008. Therefore, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont will resume their participation in the disability redesign tests on the effective date of the final rule.

Federal Register Alert

An item due to run in the Federal Register on Friday:

SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION

NOTICES

Modifications to the Disability Determination Procedures:

Reinstatement of "Prototype" and "Single Decisionmaker" Tests in States in the Boston Region, E8-04531

41 Senators Join In Letter On Social Security Budget

Here is the text of a letter that went out yesterday:

The Honorable Kent Conrad
The Honorable Judd Gregg
Chairman
Ranking Member
Senate Committee on the Budget Senate Committee on the Budget
United States Senate United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510 Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senators Conrad and Gregg:

We respectfully request that the FY 2009 Budget Resolution recommend $350 million above the President’s Budget request of $10.327 billion for the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) administrative expenses. Last year, the Senate approved as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008 as much as $363 million additional dollars that will allow Social Security to begin to reduce the enormous waiting times for many disability benefit applicants to have their benefits approved, and to reverse cuts in services to the public in SSA field offices.

Currently, many applicants to the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program and the disability portion of the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program face significant delays before receiving benefits. Indeed, waiting times can exceed three years in some cases. Such delays create serious or desperate financial situations for the applicants and their families. According to the SSA, about half of these waiting times result from the Agency’s huge backlogs of initial claims and hearings before Administrative Law Judges.

As you know, these waiting times are a major concern for many of our constituents and are a constant source of casework in Senate offices. As of January 2008 nearly 751,000 cases are awaiting a hearing on an appealed claim, compared to 312,000 cases at the beginning of FY 2000. Nearly 300,000 of these appeals are over one-year old. Approximately 91,000 veterans have their hearings pending. The average processing time for a hearing is currently over 500 days, up about 200 days from earlier this decade.

In recent years, Congress has increased the SSA’s responsibilities. Today, the SSA is required to evaluate Medicare beneficiaries’ incomes in order to determine whether they need to pay increased Part B premiums. The SSA is also responsible for implementing a low-income subsidy program to help individuals with limited incomes and assets obtain Medicare Part D coverage. Furthermore, the implementation of the Intelligence Reform legislation has increased SSA’s workload.

The President’s recommendation for SSA’s funding for FY 2009 and the additional funds received for 2008 will begin the process of reducing the backlogs, but are not enough funding to make the progress that is needed. Under SSA’s long-term plans, it would still take five years to eliminate the backlogs altogether. Moreover, the President’s Budget proposes to defer work on other important workloads, such as initiating repayments of amounts that beneficiaries have been overpaid. For these other workloads, the Budget falls $140 million short of what is needed even to operate at the same deficient processing rates as last year. Furthermore, the President’s Budget does nothing to improve other inadequate levels of service to the public in SSA’s field offices, such as the inability to get through to the office on the telephone and the long waiting times for walk-in customers.

We also suggest that the funding level for SSA’s administrative costs assumed in the Budget Resolution include funding for program integrity views to assure that only qualified individuals receive Social Security and Supplemental Security Income program benefits. Ultimately, conducting a greater number of these Continuing Disability Reviews (CDRs) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) redeterminations will reduce benefit payments to ineligible individuals and save substantially more money than they cost. CDRs detect payments in SSA’s disability programs to beneficiaries who are no longer disabled, and these reviews save $10 for each dollar spent. SSI redeterminations review the eligibility of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) beneficiaries each year. Seven dollars is saved for every one dollar spent on these redeterminations.

Providing SSA with the amount of funding requested by the President -- plus an additional $350 million -- accomplishes two objectives. First, more funds can be used to reduce backlogs of disability cases and shorten waiting times for disability benefit applicants. Second, because CDRs and SSI redeterminations save more than they cost, the adoption of both of these proposals in the Budget Resolution will result in lower Federal deficits, not higher ones. We believe this is a win-win proposition for everyone.

Thank you in advance for your consideration of this important issue.

Sincerely,


John Kerry
Olympia Snowe
Max Baucus
Edward Kennedy
Daniel Akaka
Evan Bayh
Jeff Bingaman
Joseph Biden
Barbara Boxer
Sherrod Brown
Maria Cantwell
Robert Casey
Hillary Clinton
Norm Coleman
Susan Collins
Christopher Dodd
Elizabeth Dole
Byron Dorgan
Russ Feingold
Dianne Feinstein
Daniel Inouye
Tim Johnson
Herbert Kohl
Frank Lautenberg
Patrick Leahy
Carl Levin
Joseph Lieberman
Blanche Lincoln
Claire McCaskill
Robert Menendez
Barbara Mikulski
Ben Nelson
Barack Obama
Mark Pryor
John Rockefeller
Ken Salazar
Charles Schumer
Gordon Smith
Jon Tester
George Voinovich
Ron Wyden
Richard Durbin

Possible "Mass Loss" In Minnesota

From the Associated Press:

The Social Security Administration may have to declare a "mass loss" to speed disability checks to residents of southeastern Minnesota.

Dozens of people in Austin, Rochester and other parts of southeastern Minnesota are still waiting for their disability checks -- days after they were supposed to arrived.

The checks were sent from the U.S. Treasury's office but never made it to the post office.

If the checks don't arrive today in people's mailboxes, the Social Security Administration will declare it a mass loss and expand its investigation.