What The LTD Carriers Think

From a press release:

The 2010 Long-Term Disability Claims Review, conducted by the Council for Disability Awareness (CDA) [an organization of companies involved in writing or administering long term disability or LTD policies mostly as part of employee benefits plans], reveals that CDA member companies paid more than $8 billion in ongoing disability insurance payments to individuals during 2009. ...

Despite the record number of people receiving disability payments, the 2010 CDA Claims Review reports that roughly 100 million workers have no private income protection insurance. In addition to the decline in the number of insured, fewer employers provided group long-term disability programs in 2009.

New claim applications submitted to the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program continued to surge in 2009. More workers are applying for SSDI claim payments than at any time in history, with new applications totaling 2.8 million in 2009 — an increase of 21 percent, and by far the most ever. New SSDI claims are projected to continue to rise dramatically in 2010. Over 5 percent of the workforce, or 7.8 million workers, were receiving SSDI at the conclusion of 2009.

At the same time, the approval rate for initial SSDI claims continued to decline. The approval rate fell to 35 percent in 2009, representing a continued steady decline from 52 percent 10 years ago. The CDA Claims Review found that 31 percent of individuals receiving private group long-term disability insurance benefits did not qualify for SSDI assistance ...

For a copy of The 2010 Long-Term Disability Claims Review, please visit http://www.disabilitycanhappen.org. ...

Note that insurance companies, which are notoriously tight fisted when it comes to paying LTD, are vastly more likely to approve a disability claim than the Social Security Administration. Note also that these insurance companies are saying that it has become more difficult to get LTD recipients on Social Security disability benefits. These insurance companies are concerned with getting their LTD recipients on Social Security disability since they reduce the LTD benefits by Social Security disability benefits.

No More Paper Checks

From a Notice of Proposed Rule-Making posted in the Federal Register by the Department of the Treasury:

The proposed rule would generally require individuals to receive Federal nontax payments by EFT [Electronic Funds Transfer] , effective March 1, 2011, except that there would be a delayed effective date to March 1, 2013, for two categories of individuals, namely: Individuals receiving Federal payments by check on March 1, 2011, and individuals whose claims for Federal benefits are filed before March 1, 2011, and who request check payments when they file.

For Federal benefit recipients, this means that individuals whose claims for Federal benefits are filed on or after March 1, 2011, would receive their benefit payments by direct deposit. Individuals receiving their payments by direct deposit prior to March 1, 2011, would continue to do so. Individuals who do not choose direct deposit of their payments to an account at a financial institution would be enrolled in the Direct Express® Debit MasterCard® card program, a prepaid card program ...

How To Lose Your Job As An ALJ

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has issued an opinion in Steverson v. Social Security affirming a Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) decision removing London Steverson from his position as an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) for Social Security. Here are the allegations against Steverson, as summarized in the opinion:

• [T]he agency alleged that Judge Steverson used official agency letterhead to send three letters to mortgage or loan companies relating to a personal home loan.
• Judge Steverson had used official agency letterhead to lodge a complaint against a California state court commissioner he had appeared before in a custody dispute.
• Judge Steverson had used his work computer between 2001 and 2007 to view and store sexually oriented material.
• Judge Steverson had displayed a lack of candor during his investigatory interview with Hearing Office Chief Administrative Law Judge Cynthia Minter. ... Judge Steverson maintained that he had no idea how the sexually graphic material got on his computer and that he thought his use of official stationery was acceptable under the circumstances.
• The fourth charge related to Judge Steverson’s use of his business address to send and receive personal correspondence. In June 2004, the office director for Judge Steverson’s branch office informed all employees that the office mailing address was not to be used for personal correspondences.

The ALJ assigned to hear the case at the MSRB found for Social Security on all but the lack of candor allegation and ordered that Steverson be suspended from his position for 35 day. Social Security appealed to the MSRB which agreed with Social Security and ordered Steverson removed from his position as an ALJ.

Internet Access To Social Security Files Moving Along

There was an important development at the conference of the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) last month that I had not gotten around to posting about. Social Security invited over 200 attorneys to sign up during the conference to participate in a program to allows them internet access to the electronic files that Social Security has on their clients. Previously, Social Security had only a tiny pilot with nine participants.

Since the NOSSCR conference, I and others at my firm have been able to access our clients' files, so long as the client is awaiting a hearing on their Social Security disability claim. I would not call the process elegant but it is functional and convenient. The biggest annoyance is the requirement that after I enter my user id online as well as a password that I must wait for a code number to be sent as a text message to my cell phone. I must enter that code number to gain access to my clients' files. I understand the need to be vigilant about security but this seems like overkill to me. If a person has someone else's user id and password, they can easily change the cell phone number so that they can received the text message. I do not see how the texting of a second password provides any extra security. Another annoyance is the fact that I cannot immediately download a copy of my client's file. I must ask for the file and then wait for an e-mail message telling me that it is ready to download. The delay in file preparation is not so bad now but I fear that as more and more attorneys begin using this system that the delay will creep up.

Social Security must feel that the rollout is going reasonably well. I have heard that next month Social Security will begin signing up any attorney who practices before the Raleigh hearing office. I do not know whether Raleigh is just a further test or the start of national rollout.

Preaching To The Choir

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

David Walker,who warned Congress against spending more money than it collects from U.S. taxpayers while he headed the Government Accountability Office under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush,is in Philadelphia this week on a national tour pushing new restrictions on Social Security and Medicare eligibility, and higher payroll taxes, at least for the rich.

He's asking support from influential Philadelphians who don't personally need federal checks. As president of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, endowed by the billionaire Blackstone Group L.P. investment manager, Walker was guest of honor Wednesday night at tech investor Thomas Gravina's Haverford home, where local invitees included real estate mogul Ira Lubert of $12 billion-asset Independence Capital Partners, bond and casino investor Michael Forman, and McDonald's meat-supplier-turned-philanthropist Herbert Lotman. ...

What exactly does Walker want? For Social Security, he wants an added "automatic" savings plan without guaranteed payouts, like a 401(k) plan; delayed eligibility, eventually limited to age 70 and older or "indexed to life expectancy" for the continuing guaranteed benefit; and higher payroll taxes on the rich, who pay no Social Security after their first $108,000 in salary.

That's a lot more than would be needed to address any long term financing issues with Social Security.

Searching For Plausible Occasions

Ted Marmor has an interesting piece on the Huffington Post concerning the work of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Marmor believes that the Commission seems determined to recommend deep cuts in Social Security benefits. Here is a brief excerpt:

[T]he same attacks on Social Security have been going on -- in different guises -- for at least four decades. ... What is crucial to understand is how devious and misleading such lines of argument are. They are best understood as an ideological remedy searching for plausible occasions to celebrate what was presumed.

Marmor's piece must be hitting home. Andrew Biggs has chosen to respond on his own blog. Biggs seems to feel that it is inappropriate for anyone to respond to the right wing attacks upon Social Security. He calls Marmor's piece an attack upon the character and motivation of those who want to dismantle Social Security. Biggs takes offense at the suggestion that he and others who want to gut Social Security are ideologically motivated. Yeah, right, you're just a scholar and a patriot, Biggs. You've got no ideological ax to grind.

Union Newsletter

Council 220 of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the union that represents most Social Security employees, has issued the May 2010 issue of its newsletter, UNITY. Here is a small sample from the newsletter:

The Social Security Administration has again shown there are two sets of rules: one for management officials and one for bargaining unit employees. Jared Gaspard was featured in the January, 2010 UNITY after he apparently processed about 38 phony SSI applications in order to meet agency “goals.” At the time, Gaspard was manager of the SSA office in Independence, Missouri. ...

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) conducted an investigation, and the result was that Gaspard was moved to the Training and Development Team in the Kansas City Regional Office. ...

Despite the evidence that Gaspard falsely attested to contacting applicants and taking fake applications under their name, Kansas City Regional Commissioner Michael Grochowski recently awarded him with a Regional Commissioner’s citation award for exemplary service.

[Union President] Skwierczynski said, “Awarding Gaspard who took fake SSI applications and attested to their accuracy with a Regional commissioner’s citation is outrageous. This is especially hypo-critical since the Union is currently defending bargaining employees who have been fired for the same alleged infractions.” ...

OIG Report On Flexiplace

From a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG):

Negotiated agreements between the Social Security Administration (SSA) and its unions established Flexiplace for ODAR [Office of Disability Adjudication and Review] bargaining unit employees. Flexiplace allows qualified hearing office staff to perform assigned work at a management approved alternate duty station (ADS), which is typically their personal residence. As such, employees who participate in Flexiplace take claimants’ case files to their ADS. These case files can be in paper form or stored on portable devices, such as compact discs (CD) and laptop computers, and generally include claimants’ PII [Personally Identifiable Information]—Social Security numbers (SSN), names, addresses, earnings information, and medical histories. According to an ODAR survey, approximately 2,037 (29 percent) of its 6,992 employees worked Flexiplace at least 1 day per week in Calendar Year 2008. ...

To accomplish our objective, we selected 20 hearing offices. At each office, we randomly selected and interviewed hearing office employees who participated in Flexiplace in Calendar Year 2008 as well as group supervisors. We also interviewed each office’s director and chief ALJ. In total, we interviewed 135 hearing office employees and 75 managerial staff. ...

According to most ODAR employees we interviewed, SSA’s Flexiplace program has had a positive impact on their morale or helped them work more effectively at home because of fewer interruptions. ...

ODAR’s practices over PII did not properly protect claimant data that Flexiplace employees removed. For example, ODAR management at 17 (85 percent) of the 20 hearing offices we visited allowed Flexiplace employees to remove electronic PII that was stored on unencrypted CDs. As long as employees placed claimants’ electronic data in a locked container, ODAR considered the employees to be taking proper steps to secure PII. However, we do not believe such controls are sufficient because PII remains vulnerable to unauthorized disclosure when it is “secured” in such ways.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requires that Federal agencies encrypt all data on mobile computers/devices, unless the data are not sensitive. To address OMB’s requirement, SSA implemented a policy that requires employees use Agency approved encrypted or password protected electronic devices when PII is removed in electronic form. ... While SSA is working on an encryption solution for ODAR, we believe ODAR needs to adequately safeguard claimants’ electronic data by requiring that employees save PII to an encrypted and password protected laptop—at least until the Agency implements a complete encryption solution.

Federal Computer Week has picked up on this OIG report.