Bill Passes House On Medicare Premiums

This happened fast! From Congressional Quarterly:

The House on Thursday passed a bill that would prevent Medicare premiums from rising sharply for about 11 million senior citizens.

The vote was 406-18.

The legislation would block a big increase in Medicare Part B premiums for the affected seniors, who account for about 27 percent of those enrolled in the health insurance program for the elderly and disabled.

They are in jeopardy of a steep increase in their monthly premiums because of complexities in federal law and the likelihood that Social Security recipients won't get a bump in their benefits next year to cover the cost of the premium increase. ...

The Senate is expected to act on the premium bill soon.

The bill would cost $2.8 billion and would be offset by reducing the Medicare Improvement Fund, which the Health and Human Services Department uses to make improvements to Medicare Part A and Part B.

Colvin Nominated For Deputy Commissioner

The White House has announced that Carolyn Colvin has been nominated for the vacant position of Deputy Commissioner of Social Security. Here is background information on Colvin supplied by the White House:

Carolyn W. Colvin is Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Maryland Department of Transportation. Prior to this position, she was the CEO of AMERIGROUP Community Care, a company dedicated to caring for the financially vulnerable, seniors and people with disabilities through publicly-funded programs. Colvin served as the Director of Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services for over three years and as Cabinet Director of the Department of Human Services for the District of Columbia for over two years. She also brings over six and a half years experience working for the Social Security Administration, serving as the Deputy Commissioner for Operations and the Deputy Commissioner for Programs and Policy. In those roles, she provided executive leadership and directed the work of nearly 50,000 employees and the policy and programs of Social Security. She currently is a member of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, the Arundel Community Development Services, the National Forum for Black Public Administrators, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

LA May Help Disability Claimants

From the Los Angeles Times:

With the cost of helping Los Angeles County's welfare recipients expected to hit $1 billion by the end of this fiscal year, county officials are pushing a plan to shift the burden of some of the most hard-core unemployed to the federal government. If they succeed, local taxpayers could save tens of millions of dollars, and thousands of disabled welfare recipients would see their aid more than triple.

But the hurdles could prove high. County officials propose spending $7.2 million to help applicants through a notoriously difficult process to qualify for federal disability assistance. ...

A county-commissioned study released this summer found that a third of general relief recipients surveyed had a disability that would qualify them for federal aid. ...

To help those people apply for federal aid, county officials propose spending $7.2 million on caseworkers, housing subsidies and medical evaluations and research.

Tests To Continue

From today's Federal Register:

Our current rules authorize us to test, individually or in any combination, certain modifications of the disability determination procedures. 20 CFR 404.906 and 416.1406. We have conducted several tests under the authority of these rules. In the "single decisionmaker,'' test, a disability examiner may make the initial disability determination in most cases without obtaining the signature of a medical or psychological consultant. We also have conducted a separate test, which we call the "prototype,'' in 10 States. 64 FR 47218. Currently, the prototype combines the single decisionmaker approach described above with the elimination of the reconsideration level of our administrative review process.

We have extended the time period for selecting claims for these tests several times. Most recently, on August 10, 2006, we extended the time period until September 30, 2009. 71 FR 45890. We have decided to extend case selection for the current disability prototype process (single decisionmaker and elimination of the reconsideration step) and for the separate test of the single decisionmaker until September 28, 2012.

Editorial In Detroit News On Backlogs

The Detroit News has an editorial about the long delays in adjudicating Social Security disability claims. This is a followup to a news item they ran recently.

Appropriations Situation

From the Capitol Insider put out by the Disability Policy Collaboration:

With the start of Fiscal Year 2010 less than two weeks away, both Houses of Congress are expected to pass a Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the federal government operating on October 1. None of the twelve FY 2010 appropriations will be enacted by then. Four of the bills are ready to be finalized by House and Senate conferees. The House has yet to appoint their conferees. The first CR is likely to expire on November 1. At least one more CR will be necessary before all of the bills, either singly or combined into an omnibus appropriations bill, will be enacted.

No COLA This Year, But Maybe This

From Congressional Quarterly:

House Democrats could move legislation as early as this week to prevent Medicare premiums from rising sharply for certain senior citizens.

Democratic leaders have not decided whether to move the bill, with an estimated cost of $2.1 billion, as a stand-alone measure or as part of a stopgap spending bill to keep the government funded through the end of October. The House may vote on that measure Thursday.

The problem lawmakers want to address arises from the likelihood that Social Security recipients will not get a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in their benefits next year for the first time in 35 years.

At the same time, premiums for Medicare Part B, which covers physician services and outpatient care, are expected to rise. Because Part B premiums are typically deducted from monthly Social Security checks, the lack of a COLA next year will mean an effective reduction in benefits for a minority of seniors.

A "hold harmless" provision in federal law would shield about 75 percent of Medicare beneficiaries from having to pay the Part B premium increase if there is no increase in their Social Security benefits.

But the remaining 25 percent -- a group that includes seniors newly qualifying for Medicare -- would not only have to shoulder a Part B premium increase, but they also would have to pay a portion of the increased premiums the government isn't able to collect from seniors held harmless. Those who would be stuck with the bill are low-income seniors who receive benefits from both Medicare and Medicaid; seniors with incomes above $85,000 if they are single and $170,000 for couples; and people who are new to the program.

New Rules On Attorney Fees

From today's Federal Register:

We are revising our rules to allow representatives, in certain instances, to charge and receive a fee from third-party entities without requiring our authorization. We are also eliminating the requirement that we authorize fees for legal guardians or court-appointed representatives who represent claimants before us if a court has already authorized the fees. We are revising our rules to reflect changes in representatives' business practices and in the ways claimants obtain representation, and to improve the efficiency of our representative fee process.

Social Security also rescinded Ruling 85-3 concerning the subject matter of the new regulations.