Establishing The Effective Date Of Claims For Benefits

Social Security has issued an update to its Program Operations Manual Series (POMS) addressing the issues involved with establishing the date of a claim for benefits. The date of a claim for benefits can affect the starting date for benefits. A claim for benefits that is filed too early can result in the denial of a claim. I would not say there is anything particularly new here but it is useful to see it all in one place and, especially, to see the effective date of claims filed over the internet discussed.

Updated ALJ Disposition Stats

Social Security has posted updated statistics on Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) dispositions, showing how many cases they disposed of during the time period October 1, 2009 to March 26, 2010 and how many of those dispositions were allowances.

One Of These Guys Will Be In The Senate Soon

From the Salt Lake City Tribune:

Utah's Republican Senate candidates have outlined a vision for reforming Social Security that includes raising retirement ages, private accounts and, in Mike Lee's case, taking the retirement safety net away from the federal government and letting states run it.

"Somewhere down the road we need to ask: Is the federal government the right government to be administering this?" Lee asked. "You don't find a retirement system in [the Constitution]. That, with the 10th Amendment, says it's a program best administered by the states."

Lee's proposal would mark a historic shift in the 75-year-old program, which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in three cases in 1937 is a constitutional exercise of federal power. ...

For his part, Lee also proposed significant increases in the retirement age for younger workers, suggesting that for workers 20 years from retirement, the age at which they would qualify for benefits should be raised by one year every other year.

That means a worker who is 47 years old now -- 20 years from full retirement under the current system -- would not be able to retire until he or she is 77 years old, adding an extra 10 years to their expected period of employment.

A Mascot For Social Security?

Tom Shoop at Fedblog notes that quite a number of federal agencies have their very own mascot. Social Security does not have one. Should Social Security have one? What would a Social Security mascot look like?

Tho image is of the Social Security mascot for St. Christopher-Nevis, the only one I can find.

OIG Report On Allegations Of Medical Consultant Irregularities

From a report of Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) produced in response to a Congressional request:

On March 25, 2009, your staff asked that we review allegations by the American Association of Social Security Disability Consultants (AASSDC) that (1) medical consultant (MC) assessments were altered and/or destroyed in the disability determination services, (2) MCs were pressured to produce specific assessments, and (3) disability examiners were seeking certain MCs to obtain specific assessments. ...

Of the two MCs who indicated an assessment was altered, each described one-time occurrences. In one of these cases, the MC prepared a complex assessment not taken into consideration when making the final disability determination. This occurred in a DDS with SDM authority and a supervisor noted that they did not consider the MC’s assessment. In the other instance, the MC did not give details other than it occurred over 2 years ago. ...

Of the 189 MCs who participated in our review,

• 182 indicated assessments were not deleted, and

• 7 indicated assessments were deleted.

Of the seven MCs who indicated an assessment was deleted, six reported
it was a one time occurrence. For example, an MC indicated an assessment was deleted because a more experienced consultant provided another assessment. The MC was notified and made aware of why the DE removed his assessment from the disability folder.

Edwin Abel Passes

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Edwin G. Abel Jr., 75, of Wallingford, a former Social Security Administration executive, died of sepsis Friday, May 28, at Wallingford Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. ...

Mr. Abel began his career with Social Security in 1960 as a claims representative trainee in Baltimore.

He became branch manager in Bennettsville, S.C., in 1968, when the South Carolina Jaycees named him its outstanding young man of the year, his son Ted said.

From 1969, he was in the agency's Philadelphia office, becoming an area director in the Office of Disability. In the 1980s, he was director of operations at the agency's Mid-Atlantic Program Service Center. He retired in 2007.

These obits are not easy to find. I would run them more often if I could.

You've Got To Read This

This whole article is fascinating. I'll just give you a teaser. From The Oregonian:

An attorney and a judge, bitter enemies, arrive at an elevator at the same time. They argue over who gets to ride down, then scuffle. Police arrest the attorney, who slaps a restraining order on the judge.

Sounds like a lame lawyer joke. But no. The flap occurred recently at Social Security's customarily sedate hearing office in downtown Portland, the climactic moment in a testy three-year war of words between a disability claims attorney and an administrative law judge.

Let me generalize a bit. This ridiculous situation vividly demonstrates the need for a full set of disciplinary rules for those who represent Social Security claimants. Most non-attorney representatives and attorneys working outside the states in which they are licensed act responsibly but not all of them.

House Majority Whip Supports Means Testing

From Firedoglake:

Mike Stark caught up with Democratic Majority Whip James Clyburn and asked him where he stood with regard to the Deficit Commission and potential plans to cut Social Security benefits....

CLYBURN To be fair — and I may get beaten up by some people on this, and that’s all right, I get beaten up a lot. But I think to be fair, you cannot possibly not modify a program that at the time of its enactment, we had 17 people working for every one person that was a retiree. Today, you have about three people working for every one person that is a retiree. Now that is unsustainable. ...

STARK: Is means testing the fairest way?

CLYBURN: I think that’s one way we ought to be…we ought to be discussing means testing. I think that those of us who operate at the income level that I operate at ought to be means tested.