Social Security "Financially Unsustainable"

From Agence France Presse:

US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Tuesday that America's Social Security program for the retired is "financially unsustainable" and needs an urgent overhaul.

Paulson, speaking after a government panel had completed its annual assessment of the Social Security and Medicare benefits programs, said waves of retiring Americans threaten to soon deplete available funds stockpiled in the two programs.

Biggs Now At AEI

I am not going to follow this guy's career forever, but Andrew Biggs, who was given a recess appointment as Social Security's Deputy Commissioner, is now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a right wing "think tank." I put "think tank" in quotations because I there seems to be little going on there other than the production of polemics. Biggs' ardent support for privatizing Social Security made it impossible for him to be confirmed as Deputy Commissioner of Social Security.

Assault Charge In Pennsylvania

From the Philadelphia Daily News:

An official with the Social Security Administration testified yesterday that he "felt threatened" when a West Kensington man yelled obscenities at him over the phone and said he would "kick the s---" out of him. ...

Michael Bankoff is on trial in federal court for allegedly threatening to assault three officials at the district office in February and March 2007. ...

Earlier, during opening arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Hardy said that Bankoff, 28, formerly of E. Tusculum Street near B St., was angry because SSA had discovered that it had overpaid Bankoff more than $9,400 in disability benefits and that he would have to return the money.

The payments were made from April 2001 to May 2003, when Bankoff was ineligible for payments because he was in prison for a state conviction. ...

Defense attorney James J. McHugh, Jr. said in his opening argument that the Social Security Administration had found in 1999 that Bankoff suffered from schizophrenia and other mental disorders. "He does things impulsively, without thinking and without intent," McHugh said.

Social Security Opinion On Legal Effect Of Sex Change Surgery

An opinion, apparently from Social Security's Office of Regional Counsel:

You asked whether Leslie A. M~(the claimant), who was born a male and underwent sex reassignment surgery after marrying Janet L. G~ (the insured), could be considered the insured's spouse for purposes of a widower's lump sum death payment. ...

The claimant and the insured were domiciled in California at the time of the insured's death. In California, "[o]nly a marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized." Cal. Fam. Code § 308.5. When the claimant and the insured married each other in 1973, they were a male and female, respectively. Thus, their marriage was clearly a valid marriage recognized under California law at its inception. ...

If a state recognizes an individual's ability to undergo a sex change, we must determine whether the individual has taken the appropriate action to obtain state recognition of the change. If the state does not recognize an individual's ability to undergo a sex change, or the individual has not followed the procedure set out by the state for it to recognize a sex change, we will find an individual to be the birth sex. Although both California and Montana have procedures to obtain state recognition of a sex change, the claimant did not avail herself of these procedures. ...

Since there is no state recognition of claimant's sex change, the claimant is considered a male, and the marriage between the claimant and the insured would remain a valid marriage between a male and female at the insured's death. Therefore, the claimant has the status of "spouse" for purposes of the lump sum death payment.

Kansas City Star: Social Security Cheats Ailing And Injured

From the Kansas City Star:

For years you’ve paid insurance premiums to protect yourself against unforeseen health problems. Yet when an accident or serious illness strikes, the insurer refuses to pay up.

That’s essentially theft, the kind of thing people expect the government to step in and stop.

But in this case, it is the government itself — Social Security, to be precise — that is cheating ailing and injured people out of the money to which they are entitled.

As detailed in a story in Sunday’s Kansas City Star, Social Security is victimizing large numbers of people by delaying their disability payments or refusing to pay them at all.

It’s an outrage.

The Last Hurrah For The Bush Social Security Plan

A Treasury Department press release:

Treasury Secretary and Managing Trustee Henry M. Paulson, Jr. will be joined by members of the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees for a press briefing to discuss the release of the annual Trustees Reports on Tuesday.

Who
Secretary of Treasury and Managing Trustee Henry M. Paulson, Jr.
Secretary of Labor and Trustee Elaine L. Chao
Secretary of Health and Human Services and Trustee Michael Leavitt
Commissioner of Social Security and Trustee Michael J. Astrue

What
Press Conference to discuss Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports

When
Tuesday, March 25, 2008, 2:00 p.m. EDT

Where
Treasury Department
Media Room (Room 4121)
1500 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC

Note
Copies of the Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports will be available at the briefing. A pen and pad background briefing will follow the press conference at 2:30 p.m. in the same room.

Happy Easter

Waiting In Kansas City -- And Allsup Can Help

From the Kansas City Star:

If you get sick or hurt so badly that you may never work again, your last, desperate wisp of a safety net — Social Security disability benefits — is horribly tattered.

Apply for benefits now and, if statistical averages hold for the Kansas City area, it may be December 2009 before you see a check. That is if you are among the estimated one in three applicants who gets any money at all.

That wait is seven months longer than five years ago. ...

Vicki Kindred of Ferrelview in Platte County worked as a hotel and house cleaner before arthritis, fibromyalgia and other ailments made lifting mattresses, lugging sweepers and scrubbing toilets too painful. The 51-year-old woman has been trying since May 2000 to win disability benefits she believes she earned in the more than 20 years she worked previously.

Hers is a longer-than-average appeals process, she concedes. Both she and the first attorney she hired made some early mistakes trying to follow explicit but complex rules to qualify for benefits.

Loose, who is 61, worked in sales and middle management for nearly 40 years before being sidelined by diabetes, an arthritislike illness, hip replacement and finally, a nearly fatal heart attack in September 2005. He hired the Social Security and Medicare claims specialty firm Allsup Inc. to navigate the application maze for him.