Time To Pull The Plug On Ticket To Work?

From a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General on the Ticket to Work program (emphasis added):

We understand that the Ticket Program is a relatively new program and any savings achieved may be realized over a long period of time. Still, we found the economic self-sufficiency and related benefit savings outcomes were similar for beneficiaries, whether they participated in the Ticket Program or not. While the two groups had similar outcomes, SSA paid additional costs for the Ticket Program and recent changes are projected to increase the overall costs of the Ticket Program. Also, implementation of the Ticket Program did not appear to increase the percentage of disabled beneficiaries who returned to work, nor realize the outcomes and savings envisioned by Congress. Given our findings, we recommend SSA:

1. Evaluate the continued viability of the Ticket Program.

2. Work with Congress to reform or end the Ticket Program if the Agency determines it is not having the desired impact and/or it is not cost-effective.

AGENCY COMMENTS

SSA agreed with our recommendations ...

Bush Succeeded In Scaring People, If Nothing Else

From Rasmussen:

National Survey of 1,000 Likely Voters

Conducted August 1, 2008
By Rasmussen Reports

1* How confident are you that the Social Security system will pay you all promised retirement benefits during your lifetime?

15% Very confident
29% Somewhat confident
28% Not very confident
25% Not at all confident
3% Not sure

2* Should working Americans be allowed to opt out of Social Security and provide for their own retirement planning?

45% Yes
41% No
13% Not sure

3* Is Social Security a good deal for working Americans today?

46% Yes
37% No
18% Not sure

4* Currently, people pay Social Security taxes on the first $102,000 workers earn each year. People who make more than that do not pay Social Security taxes on salary and wages above that level. Should Social Security taxes be paid on ALL OR MOST OF THE income workers earn each year?

62% Yes
25% No
13% Not sure

5* Should people who pay more in Social Security taxes receive more Social Security benefits when they retire?

62% Yes
24% No
14% Not sure

NOTE: Margin of Sampling Error, +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence

Happy 73rd Birthday, Social Security!

Screwup In Nebraska

From the Lincoln Journal Star:

About 7,400 Medicare beneficiaries in Nebraska can request a waiver of a recent decision that two months Part B premium arrearages would be withheld from their September Social Security check.

This situation arose when an incorrect list from the State of Nebraska was sent to Social Security identifying more than 9,500 Part B beneficiaries for whom the State of Nebraska was going to pay their Medicare Part B premiums beginning April 2008. ...

Each beneficiary received a refund of several months Medicare Part B premiums. After the list was corrected, beneficiaries were told that the overpayments created by this erroneous list would be collected from the benefit they will receive in September.

To request a waiver of the overpayment, beneficiaries should contact Social Security ...

Interesting that they are treating this as an overpayment subject to waiver.

Hearing Loss Listings

The Notice of Proposed Rule-Making (NPRM) for the new hearing loss listings will be in the Federal Register tomorrow, but you can read it today. I see no major departure from the current listings on a cursory review.

This was cleared by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on August 6 and will appear in the Federal Register on August 13, which is a fairly normal interval between these two events. The NPRM for the new mental impairment listings was cleared by OMB on July 9, but has still not appeared in the Federal Register. I do not know the reason for the delay, but I have to guess that it has some significance.

Waiting In South Carolina

WSPA-TV in Spartanburg, SC has a "Problem Solver" reporter. This reporter found that she was getting more calls about backlogs in adjudicating Social Security disability claims than anything else, so she did a story on the subject. Take a look at the video.

OIG Report On ALJ Productivity

Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued a report on Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) and hearing office productivity. The report tells us that higher producing ALJs approved a higher percentage of cases than lower producing ALJs and that an increased percentage of on the record reversals, that is approvals without a hearing, accounted for a good part of that difference. Higher producing ALJs also held shorter hearings.

The report tells us that a higher ratio of staff to ALJ helped produce more decisions. Commissioner Astrue had stated back in June that "We have also received some criticism that we are not providing adequate support staff for our administrative law judge corps. In my opinion, that is a fiction designed to sidetrack some of our productivity initiatives." That statement, which was not off the cuff, but in Astrue's written statement to a Congressional committee is not looking too good at the moment.

Here is an excerpt from the report worth quoting:

ALJs stated that the electronic folder has slowed case processing. While some ALJs indicated the slowdown is a result of the learning curve associated with the electronic folder, other ALJs assert that processing cases with the electronic folder will always be slower than with paper files. Specifically, some ALJs stated that it is faster to page through a paper file than navigate through the screens and documents attached in the electronic folder. ODAR has confirmed that there are general intermittent systems performance issues, such as limited bandwidth causing periods of slow response times. However, because the problems are intermittent, documentation of these occurrences was not available from ODAR. Information was not available for us to determine the impact the electronic folder has had on case processing times.

Why is it that this is the first official report from Social Security discussing this topic? Why is it that they lack sufficient information? It is like they have been afraid to try to find out whether the electronic folder is working. After this length of time the lack of proof that the electronic folder has improved productivity is rather powerful proof to me that it is not working. If the electronic folder were succeeding, Social Security would be quick to gather proof of the success and to tell the world.

Let me ask the question that OIG did not try to ask or answer. Where would Social Security be today if the money lavished upon the electronic folder contractors had been spent on additional employees to get the work done? The answer is obvious. The backlog at Social Security would be vastly smaller, maybe even non-existent.

I nominate the electronic folder as the worst single decision in the history of the Social Security Administration and Jo Anne Barnhart as the worst Commissioner in Social Security history.

Death Of Claimant After Denial

From a new Program Operations Manual Series (POMS) issuance:

When a disabled claimant dies from a non-traumatic impairment within 1 year of the date of denial or cessation, and a reconsideration was not requested by the claimant before his/her death, or one has not been filed subsequently by a survivor, the case is reexamined and possibly reopened. No Request for Reconsideration (SSA-561) is required. If death resulted from a subsequent traumatic event, no reexamination is made under this procedure.