Help For Thousands

From New American Media:

Rosa Martinez didn’t know what to do when the Social Security Administration told her two years ago that the agency was stopping her disability assistance because she had an outstanding 1980 arrest warrant for illegal possession of prescription drugs in Miami. A resident of Redwood City, Calif., she has never visited Miami. ...

She pleaded with a series of bureaucrats that she could not be the same Rosa Martinez named in the old warrant, a Rosa eight inches taller. But those please fell on deaf ears.

“Maybe God put me in this situation so I could help others,” she said at a New America Media press briefing, where she and legal aid attorneys described how she became the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit, Martinez v. Astrue, against the Social Security Administration. Michael Astrue is the Social Security commissioner.

The class action lawsuit led to federal court settlement that will return up to $500 million to about a quarter million people, who had their Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) supports wrongfully cut off by the Social Security Administration (SSA).

Outreach is critical, though, because many people who lost their benefits over the last 10 years must reapply to Social Security. In some cases eligible people have only about six months to apply or they risk permanently losing those benefits. ...

The Social Security Administration (SSA) will soon be notifying people, mainly by mail, that they can reapply for assistance.

Help Needed

I have received the following e-mail from Peter Martin who is the Jane M.G. Foster Professor of Law at Cornell and the former dean of the law school:

As the author of a Social Security law resource (http://www.law.cornell.edu/socsec/) I was recently asked to do a presentation for a group of academics on "when to claim Social Security [retirement] benefits".

I later decided to try to rework the talk for a broader audience. If you or a colleague should have time to look at it, I would welcome feedback. You will find the current version at: http://www.access-to-law.com/socsec

Please find some time to give Professor Martin some help. With the aging of the baby boom generation, this question gets asked more and more.

Yesterday's Hearing

Federal News Radio has an article about yesterday's Congressional hearing as does the Imperial Valley News.

The Subcommittees involved have posted a number of charts used at the hearing. The one I found most interesting is to the left. Click on it to see it full size.

Videos from the hearing are also available online.

• Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Earl Pomeroy
• Income and Security Subcommittee Chairman Jim McDermott
• Congressman Bob Filner
• Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue
• DanBertoni of the Government Accountability Office
• Social Security Inspector General Patrick O'Carroll
• Nancy Shor, Executive Director of National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives, speaking for the Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities
• Administrative Law Judge Randall Frye, speaking for the Association of Administrative Law Judges
• Harris County Deputy Sheriff Eddie Willrich

Social Security's plan to reinstate the reconsideration step in the ten states in which it had been eliminated is quite controversial. This came up in the remarks of many of the witnesses.

Another ALJ For Omaha

From the Omaha World-Herald:

The Omaha hearings office that reviews appeals from most Nebraskans and western Iowans expects to hire a judge soon to fill a slot that has been vacant since last year, said Michael Astrue, commissioner of the Social Security Administration.

The new judge should hear cases by the first week of July, Astrue told The World-Herald on Tuesday. His comments came after he testified before Congress about the continued backlog of disability claims nationwide.

"A Rare Computer Error"

WSPA in Greenville-Spartanburg, SC is running a story about a man who was approved for Supplemental Security Income but who did not receive his back benefits for more than a year. Social Security blamed the delay on "a rare computer error" but Social Security's Inspector General testified yesterday before a Congressional committee that there were a number of other people in the same boat. My experience is that delays of this sort are vastly more common than what the Inspector General found.

Witness List For Today's Hearing

The witness list is out for today's joint hearing of the Social Security and Income Security Subcommittees of the House Ways and Means Committee:

PANEL:

• The Honorable Bob Filner, a Representative in Congress from the State of California

PANEL:

• The Honorable Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner, Social Security Administration

An excerpt:
In Michigan, an economically hard-hit State, we have concluded that too many cases are needlessly going to the hearings level from the DDSs. Therefore, we plan to reinstate reconsideration in Michigan next fiscal year. ...

[W]e are also looking at reinstating reconsideration in Colorado, at the request of the Governor. ...

By the end of FY 2010, we expect to have 2,800 more DDS employees on board than we did at the end of FY 2008 ...

We are in-sourcing verbatim hearing reporting to further improve ALJ productivity. [Note that he appears to be talking about replacing contractors with federal employees.] ...

To assist with decision writing and case preparation in our hearing offices, we will establish National Case Assistance Centers (NCAC) in McLean, Virginia, and St. Louis, Missouri. The McLean NCAC is scheduled to open in May 2010 and will perform decision writing only. The St. Louis NCAC will be co-located with the new St. Louis NHC, opening in July 2010, and will both write decisions and prepare cases.
PANEL:

• Dan Bertoni, Director for Disability Issues Education, Workforce & Income Security Team, U.S. Government Accountability Office
• The Honorable Patrick P. O’Carroll, Inspector General, Social Security Administration

An excerpt:

As devastating as the wait for a decision can be, it is perhaps more troubling that, even once a claim is approved, there can be a delay in SSA actually issuing the funds awarded to the claimant. In conducting the survey described above, we discovered that some individuals whose claims were allowed were never paid. As a result, we have commenced an audit entitled Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income Claims Approved But Not Paid. In this audit, we are examining the extent to which this occurs. Although not completed, our review of almost half a million 2006 disability allowances in the Title II and Title XVI programs revealed initially that 61 deserving claimants had never been paid, and that another 19 did not begin receiving payments as early as they should have.

• Nancy Shor, Executive Director, National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey on behalf of Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Social Security Task Force
• The Honorable D. Randall Frye, Administrative Law Judge, Kings Mountain, North Carolina on behalf of Association of Administrative Law Judges

An excerpt:
We are presently informed that in some hearing offices cases are assigned out of rotation and reassigned from one judge to another. We believe such a practice must be discontinued as it is inconsistent with the APA [Administrative Procedure Act] and legal precedent and is detrimental to the American people.

• Eddie Willrich, Deputy Sheriff, Harris County Sheriff's Office, Houston, Texas, accompanied by Carol Durkin, Special Agent and Team Leader, Cooperative Disability Investigation Unit, Houston, Texas

Like Getting Beaten In Football By 40 Points And Calling It Success

From the North Platte, Nebraska Telegraph:

Can't work because you're sick or injured? What if your claim for disability benefits is denied?

In Nebraska and western Iowa, you have two choices: Accept the decision or appeal for a hearing at the local Social Security office - and wait about 18 months.

Tracking with improvements nationwide, the average wait at the hearings office in Omaha has declined by nearly four months from its all-time high in 2008. But that wait remains three months longer than the national average - and nine longer than in the nation's fastest office, in Middlesboro, Ky. ...

John Garlinger, a spokesman for the agency's regional office that covers Nebraska and Iowa, said the situation in Omaha remains unacceptable.

"Is it where we want to be? No, of course not," he said. "But it's moving in the right direction." ...

The Omaha office now has about 3,000 pending cases, people waiting for a hearing.

"It's a huge toll on their families and them," said Omaha attorney Tim Cuddigan, who represents Magill and hundreds of others seeking disability benefits. ...

Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., called the situation an "embarrassment" to Social Security officials. Terry has written letters decrying the delays in the past. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., has pushed for more funding.

Terry said he'd like to turn up the heat on those in charge and scoffed at any suggestion of success with wait times hovering at or around 18 months.

"If that's success - that's like Nebraska touting success when Missouri beat them by 40 points - geez, we still scored 20?" Terry said. "Come on."

FIFO

In response to a Congressional request, Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has done a recent audit to see how closely Social Security is sticking to its First In, First Out (FIFO) policy when it comes to holding hearings and issuing decisions to Social Security claimants. The audit shows no major problem.

Unfortunately, the audit was limited to 55 cases at three hearing offices.