Summers On Social Security "Reform"

From Edmund Andrews' The Caucus blog at the New York Times:

Lawrence Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council, told a conference of economists in Washington on Tuesday that President Obama would probably start addressing the needs of Social Security before the end of his term. ...

Mr. Summers seemed intent on signaling that Mr. Obama’s idea of “reform” would be to strengthen the program rather rather than to partly privatize it.

I have this feeling that before it is over the Obama health care plan will come to include some "fix" for Social Security. President Obama keeps promising that his health care plan will not cost the Treasury any money yet so far his administration has not offered a plan for offsetting the costs of the health care plan. Social Security "reform" offers a means of offsetting these costs. Administration officials keep talking Social Security "reform." I am probably adding 2 + 2 and getting not 4 or even 5, but 13. We shall see.

Settlement In Fugitive Felon Class Action

From the Washington Post:

The Social Security Administration has agreed to pay more than $500 million in back benefits to more than 80,000 recipients whose benefits were unfairly denied after they were flagged by a federal computer program designed to catch serious criminals, officials said Tuesday.

According to a preliminary agreement, approved Tuesday by U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken in Oakland, Calif., the Social Security Administration will pay recipients who have been denied benefits since Jan. 1, 2007. In addition, more than 120,000 recipients who were denied benefits before 2007 are eligible to apply for reinstatement....

"It's changing a policy which was really devastating for some of the most vulnerable people in the country," said Gerald McIntyre, an attorney with the National Senior Citizens Law Center, one of the organizations representing the plaintiffs.

The searches captured dozens of criminals, including some wanted for homicide. But they also ensnared countless elderly and disabled people accused of relatively minor offenses such as shoplifting or writing bad checks. In some cases, the victims simply shared a name and a birth date with an offender. Often it was difficult for these citizens to appeal their cases....

In the last few years, at least eight district court judges across the country have ruled in favor of victims in individual cases, saying that cutting off benefits based solely on the database search was illegal.

AALJ Loses Case Against OPM

The Association of Administrative Law Judges (AALJ), which represents most of Social Security's Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) and several attorneys in private practice filed suit against the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) over the announcement of a new register for ALJs. The lawsuit raised a number of issues, mostly having to do with allegations that attorneys already working for Social Security were given an advantage by the way in which OPM created the new register and the way in which OPM announced the new register.

The AALJ and the attorneys have lost on all counts. Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted summary judgment to OPM yesterday.

Update: As a commenter correctly points out, summary judgment was granted against AALJ on only one of four causes of action. The rest of the case goes forward.

Some Numbers For The Appeals Council

The Social Security Forum, a publication of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) contains the report reproduced below that NOSSCR obtained from Social Security on Appeals Council operations. Click on it to see it full size.

NADE Newsletter

The National Association of Disability Examiners (NADE), an organization that represents the people who make initial and reconsideration determinations upon Social Security disability claims at state Disability Determination Services (DDS), has issued its Summer 2009 newsletter.

The newsletter contains a good deal of information about NADE's interaction with the Occupational Information Development Advisory Panel (OIDAP). I noticed the NADE seems interested in eliminating the concept of transferable skills in determining disability.

The newsletter contains a list showing the problems caused for DDS's around the country by state budget problems. The list shows seven states with DDS hiring freezes and five states with furloughs of DDS personnel. The list is more than three months old so things may be worse in many states by now. I know that things are worse in North Carolina, where we now have a partial furlough of all state employees, including DDS employees.

Many Criminal Charges In Michigan

From WILX:

More than 200 Muskegon-area residents are accused of cashing duplicated Social Security disability checks and defrauding the federal government of more than $400,000.

The Muskegon Chronicle and WOOD-TV report state charges were announced Monday against 209 individuals.

The suspects were identified during a 10-month investigation code-named "Operation Rain Check." Investigators say many cashed duplicate Social Security checks after claiming the originals were stolen or lost. Some were collecting checks for other people as "representative payees."

Fifty-six suspects are charged with felonies and 153 with misdemeanors. Arrest warrants have been issued and the suspects will be arraigned in 60th [?] District Court in batches over the next several weeks.

Why Put Retarded People On The Hit List?

A document issued by the staff of the Social Security's Occupational Information Development Advisory Panel (OIDAP) seems to me to display a fixed intention to make it harder for persons with low cognitive abilities to qualify for Social Security disability benefits.

First, let us define a term. "Cognitive" refers to intellectual qualities -- the ability to think, reason and remember. Someone with low cognitive abilities has a low IQ. Those who have cognitive difficulties range from merely having low average intelligence to being profoundly retarded. Some disability claims are filed based solely upon very low cognitive abilities, but many more are filed by those who have a combination of somewhat low cognitive abilities with other physical or mental impairments.

There is extensive and persuasive evidence that the cognitive demands of employment have increased in recent decades. I was under the impression that this was a well-established fact that no one disputes. As one who has been around for a few decades, I though it was self-evident.

And yet, we have a statement by the staff of ODIP that they know that if they collect data about the cognitive demands of employment that there is no question about it, that it will become harder for Social Security disability claimants with low cognitive abilities to qualify for benefits. The only issue they perceive is how to defend this. I think they correctly perceive that defending this will be difficult.

How does OIDAP staff know that if they devise a system that generates data about the cognitive demands of employment that this data will make it harder for retarded people to get disability benefits? They have not finished devising a data collection system, much less collected any data. Such information as we have already tells us to expect the exact opposite, that updated data will show fewer employment opportunities for people who have low cognitive abilities. It sounds like OIDAP staff has prejudged what an updated occupational information system will show and that they intend for it to hurt retarded people. Why? How did retarded people get on the hit list? How can one interpret this as anything other than prejudice against people with low cognitive abilities? How do we trust OIDAP to devise a fair system when their staff has a preconceived intention to use the new system to hurt a class of disability claimants?

SSAB Releases Report On SSI Payment Accuracy

The Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB) has just released a May 2009 report it prepared on payment accuracy in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. I have no idea why this report is just now showing up on the SSAB website.

The report shows a dramatic decline in SSI redeterminations between 2003 and 2007. The effect has been a dramatic increase in SSI overpayments.

The report also shows a dramatic increase in the backlog of SSI cases awaiting continuing disability reviews. When cases were reviewed, most of the time the only "review" was a mailing to the claimant asking some questions. Unless the claimant reported that he or she was improved or had gone back to work, there was little chance of the "review" leading to the termination of benefits.

This has been caused by budget problems at Social Security. While Republicans controlled Congress, Social Security was given such inadequate operating funds that the agency had to cut back on anything not immediately necessary. The result was poorer service to the public and poor stewardship of public funds. Things are getting better now, but only very slowly.