US Not Alone In Seeing Increase In Disability Claims -- And What Does This Portend For The U.S.

From The Australian:

The government will crack down on eligibility for disability pensions in the wake of a 30 per cent spike in applications during the global financial crisis.

Families Minister Jenny Macklin has said the government was concerned that a change in work status rather than health was the main reason for the surge in applications for the welfare benefit. ...

Ms Macklin said the rate of people applying for the disability pension was very closely related to the rate applying for unemployment benefits. ...

Addressing a forum by the Labor-leaning think tank Per Capita in Canberra yesterday, she spelt out details of a new system for assessing claims for the disability pension that would place much greater weight on previous work history.

"From July next year, a new triage system will be introduced to cater for the different needs of new claimants for the disability pension."

People who were "manifestly eligible" because of catastrophic, congenital disability or cancer would be fast-tracked so they could get support more quickly.

Those who were clearly not eligible would be channelled out of the claim process earlier, while borderline claims would be subjected to an intensive work assessment. ...

Ms Macklin said the new system of assessment would place much greater emphasis on a person's work history.

"At the moment, there is no assessment of prior work history when determining whether an individual has the capacity to work in the future."

Fast tracking cases of the most clearly disabled -- where have I heard of that before?

The bigger issue here is that one response to an increase in the number of disability claims is to try to make it harder to get disability benefits. We have seen an increase in disability claims in the U.S. Will we, like Australia, see an attempt to make it harder to get disability benefits?

Webinar For Wounded Warriors

Disability.gov reports that Social Security is sponsoring a "webinar" for wounded warriors on November 4. "Participants will learn about benefit programs, and get answers to questions such as who is eligible, and when and how to apply for benefits."

Class Action Settled

From SeniorJournal.com:

A suit filed in 2007 by Medicare beneficiaries against the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Social Security Administration has been settled. One of the legal teams that represented the beneficiaries, The Center for Medicare Advocacy, says the Machado case was brought by beneficiaries who experienced lengthy delays in having their Part D premiums accurately withheld, or not withheld, from their Social Security benefits. ...

[U]nder the terms of the settlement, customer service representatives at 1(800)MEDICARE are now directed to advise people to call back, or to call their plan, if 90 days elapse after the "triggering date" without resolution of their problem. ...

Pursuant to the settlement agreement, CMS has also formally revised its operating procedures to prioritize and track the resolution of every Part D premium withholding complaint ...

It is not clear whether Social Security agreed to do anything as part of the settlement.

Qualified Tuition Program Funds Are Countable Resources For SSI

From a recent issuance of Social Security's Program Operations Manual Series (POMS):

Funds in a Qualified Tuition Program (QTP), also referred to as a Section 529 Plan, are a countable resource to the individual who owns the account (e.g. a parent or grandparent). Normally, the owner is the person who established the account. In most instances, the individual who establishes a QTP retains the ability to withdraw any or all of the funds in the account for his or her own benefit.

NOTE: In most cases, the designated beneficiary (i.e. the student or future student) is not the owner of the account and does not have any rights to the funds in the account.

Shooting At Social Security Parking Lot

From WFMZ-TV in Allentown, PA:

A man shot and killed his girlfriend in the parking lot of the Social Security office in Pottsville around noon today, according to authorities. They say police then followed the gunman, identified as Frank Manganiello, 51, of Schuylkill Haven, from the Social Security office in the 2200 block of West Market to the First United Methodist Church at West Market and 4th. The district attorney says Manganiello, who was recently released from prison, went inside the church and shot and killed himself on the altar. He said he's not aware of any connection between Manganiello and the church. The D.A. identified the girlfriend as Sandra Pucci, 49.

Contract For Jacobs Engineering

The Associated Press reports that Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc. has been awarded a contract to manage construction of a new $300 million data center for Social Security.

Some Clarifications

I had posted that Nancy Shor, the executive director of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR), had mentioned an upcoming hearing of the Social Security Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee during the first week of November. I was not at the NOSSCR meeting last week and had to rely upon someone who was. I am now told that she had only talked about a possible Subcommittee hearing. She said that she assumed the hearing would be about Social Security's backlog. She said that NOSSCR would be able to submit a written statement, indicating support for the continuation of the fee provisions in the Social Security Protection Act.

I had also posted about the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on data exchanges at Social Security. I was a bit confused in my terminology. I thought that E-Verify was a generic term that covered most of Social Security's data exchanges. The GAO report was not about E-Verify, which involves exchanges with private employers. Instead, it focused on Social Security’s systems for data exchanges with other federal, state, and local agencies, such as Departments of Motor Vehicles data exchanges for purposes of voter registration.

OIG Report On Fugitive Felons

Some excerpts from a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) concerning implementation of the law forbidding payment of benefits to fugitive felons and the Martinez class action concerning Social Security's implementation:

We estimate that about 60.7 percent of individuals with outstanding warrants will be paid Title II and XVI benefits as a result of the Martinez settlement agreement. The remaining 39.3 percent will continue to have their benefits stopped....

The settlement agreement, however, does not restrict SSA or the Office of the Inspector General’s (OIG) data sharing activities with law enforcement. Therefore, the OIG will continue to obtain data from law enforcement agencies on fugitive felons wanted for all offense codes and match that data with SSA’s records. Additionally, the OIG will share information in SSA’s records regarding the fugitive’s location (that is, address information) with law enforcement so that they can potentially arrest the fugitive. ...

SSA identified fugitive felons and probation or parole violators through data matches between the Agency’s beneficiary rolls and Federal and State warrant databases. Since the program’s inception in August 1996 through July 2009, it has contributed to a total of 86,309 arrests. ...

Are there any other legislative changes/additions you would recommend to this language to ensure the future success of the fugitive felon program? ...

Removing the word “fleeing” from the language of the law and incorporating language prohibiting payment to individuals with an outstanding felony warrant would enable SSA to not pay benefits to these individuals and prohibit them from being representative payees. Another option would be to define what is meant by the word “fleeing” in the context of this legislation.

The report was requested by Congress. One question asked of OIG concerned the "challenges" of implementing the fugitive felon program. In its response, OIG somehow failed to mention the fact that many, perhaps most, of the people whose benefits were cut off were not truly fugitives, a fact which led to the class action. I would say that OIG is having trouble accepting responsibility for its own role in this fiasco.