Social Security And Senate Version Of Health Care Reform -- Some Asbestosis Victims Gets Special Benefits

From the New York Times:

Buried in the deal-clinching health care package that Senate Democrats unveiled over the weekend is an inconspicuous proposal expanding Medicare to cover certain victims of “environmental health hazards.”

The intended beneficiaries are identified in a cryptic, mysterious way: individuals exposed to environmental health hazards recognized as a public health emergency in a declaration issued by the federal government on June 17, 2009.

And who might those individuals be? It turns out they are people exposed to asbestos from a vermiculite mine in Libby, Mont.

The bill (page 198) gives authority to the Commissioner of Social Security to determine exactly who is entitled to this benefit. I think that the bill extends Medicare to this group for screening purposes only (see page 207) but the language is opaque.

The Spirit Of Christmas

Commissioner's Message On Appropriations

Subject: COMMISSIONER'S BROADCAST--12/18/09

A Message To All SSA And DDS Employees

Subject: FY 2010 Appropriation

Some good news to share!

President Obama has signed the omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal year (FY) 2010. The appropriations bill provides us with the amount requested in the FY 2010 President’s Budget, which represents a 10 percent increase over our FY 2009 appropriation.

Sustained, adequate funding for our agency makes a real difference to the American people. With the additional funding Congress provided over the last few years, we have made significant progress in enhancing service to the public, reducing the hearings backlog, processing hundreds of thousands more claims, and improving 800-number wait times and busy signals. I am proud of what we have accomplished, and I want to thank each of you for your efforts that contributed to our success in FY 2009.

With our annual appropriation, we will continue to increase staffing in hearings offices and in the State Disability Determination Services (DDSs). This past year, we increased the number of field office staff, and our funding will allow us to maintain this level. In addition, Operations will receive some additional hires to expand Federal capacity to help the DDSs. Our FY 2010 hiring plans will ensure that we maintain the momentum we achieved in FY 2009.

However, as you all know only too well, we are still dealing with dramatically higher workloads caused by the recession. Even with the 10 percent increase in funding, it will be a challenge to keep the level of pending initial disability claims below one million in FY 2010. We will continue to need adequate and sustained funding in future years in order to achieve our goals of reducing the hearings and disability claims backlogs.

We obviously have many challenges ahead of us, but I am confident that we are up to the task. I will keep you posted on our progress throughout the year.

Michael J. Astrue

Commissioner

Resurrection Takes Time

From KENS in San Antonio:

Considering the last several months, Robert McKenzie maintains a good spirit.

"I believe in God," the 72-year-old said. "I know that he will work things out, but sometimes when the devil gets after you, sometimes everything just falls apart."

In July, doctors diagnosed him with prostate cancer. But Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas left him with another problem.

It declared him dead.

The mistake was a simple coding error while processing his paperwork after he was discharged, the hospital said.

But that mistake spiraled into more problems.

"I had no income coming in," McKenzie continued. "I had my Medicare cut off. My Social Security was cut off. My SSI (Supplemental Security Income) was cut off. Everything!" ...

Presbyterian Hospital said when it discovered its mistake it fixed it immediately. The hospital even gave McKenzie $5,000 to help cover bills in the interim.

But unwinding this error with the Social Security Administration has taken longer.

Social Security's monthly checks of $700 resumed in December - for the first time since July, McKenzie said.

Supplemental Security Income was reactivated this week and he should receive checks again in January.

But neither Social Security nor SSI has been paid retroactively for the months he missed because of Presbyterian Hospital's mistake.

The Social Security Administration said work remains on McKenzie's file. Getting it all sorted out won't happen until after the holidays. ...

Part of the problem, he discovered, came from the $5,000 the hospital gave him. Social Security said it will deduct that from his Supplemental Income benefit.

Social Security Employee Finalist For Cost-Cutting Idea Award

Christie Dickson of Alabama, a Social Security employee, is a finalist for a White House Securing Americans Value and Efficiency (SAVE) Award. Dickson suggested scheduling Social Security appointments online.

House Of Representatives Passes Extension of SSI Withholding And Non-Attorney Withholding

The House of Representatives has passed the Jobs for Main Street Act of 2009 (page 115) which would make withholding of fees for representing Supplemental Security Income (SSI) claimants permanent and which would also make permanent withholding of fees for certain non-attorney representatives of Social Security claimants. There appear to be no other provisions in the bill affecting Social Security.

This bill is in a complicated procedural posture not worth explaining here. The net effect, however, is that the ball is in the Senate's court. Obviously, the Senate is tied up at the moment with health care reform. This bill will probably be the most important piece of business before the Senate come the new year -- assuming Republicans cannot succeed in delaying health care reform that long. While the Social Security provisions are uncontroversial, the entire bill is anathema to Republicans, who will try hard to stall it.

Driving Me Up The Wall In Two Ways

From Dave Lieber (who calls his column the Watchdog) writing in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

Ray Shuga, a retired truck driver in Fort Worth, twiddled his thumbs for about two years between the time he applied for Social Security Disability Insurance and the arrival of his first check.

"In Texas, there are so many people applying for disability, they are just way, way backed up," he says.

So he and his wife waited while the federal government tried to catch up with demand. Or at least catch up with them.

"We were counting pennies left and right," Shuga says. "We couldn’t buy anything, couldn’t do anything. My pickup had problems. My wife’s car had problems. But we got by."

In Texas, about 50,000 people are waiting to hear back about their initial application to get SSDI benefits, paid to people who are under retirement age but can no longer work because of a disability.

That number of applicants almost doubled in one year, the Social Security Administration says. ...

The Watchdog was alerted to the SSDI backlog by a representative of Allsup Inc., a third-party company that helps Americans file claims and in return takes a percentage of the initial retroactive payment if an applicant is successful.

Spokesman Dan Allsup says the Belleville, Ill., company has a 99 percent success rate when applicants stick with Allsup through the entire process ...

This drives me up the wall in two ways. First, I get many clients like this. They hear there are backlogs so they wait until they are destitute and desperate before filing a claim. These clients do not want to hear me telling them it will take another two to three years at best before they receive help. I suppose you can figure out the other part of this that drives me up the wall.

Replacing National Computer Center

From NextGov:

If the Social Security Administration's data center -- which stores 450 million earnings and benefits records -- suddenly crashed, the agency's operations would come to a near standstill for seven days, a top agency official told a House panel on Wednesday.

It would take SSA a week to transfer computer tapes to a commercial backup computer facility to recover the data, which the agency uses to issue Social Security numbers and administer benefits, Michael Gallagher, SSA deputy commissioner for budget, finance and management, told the Social Security Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee. ...

SSA started building its own secondary data center in Research Triangle Park, N.C., in May. That center stores 400 million medical records used to issue electronic disability claims and also provides redundant connections to SSA offices nationwide, including providing them with Internet access.

But the North Carolina facility will not become fully functional until 2012 ...

While the agency works on a backup data center, officials are considering how to replace their primary data center, the 39-year-old National Computer Center at SSA's headquarters in Woodlawn, Md..

The 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided $500 million for the new data center, the largest single federal building project funded by the stimulus bill. SSA and the General Services Administration are conducting a search for a new site within 40 miles of the headquarters facility.

Building the data center on a site off the Woodlawn campus would be cheaper than building a new center on site, according to a Booz Allen Hamilton study released in February. Building a new center off campus would cost $748 million compared with $803 million on campus, O'Carroll said. ...

Rob Hewell, regional commissioner for the Public Buildings Service's Mid-Atlantic Region at GSA, told lawmakers the agency has looked at more than 150 potential sites for the data center and plans to purchase one in March 2009.