Fighting Back -- Does The Public Know Enough To Care?

From a law firm's blog:

At the Landau Law Shop, Herndon Disability lawyer Doug Landau was contacted by several families with bad outcomes as the result of using a volume law firm that failed to prepare their all important Federal cases. While we normally meet with clients, their families and prepare them well in advance of their court date, these firms meet their clients minutes before they are to appear before an Administrative Law Judge ! These cases tugged at our heart strings. In one case, the family was represented by a non-attorney "representative." Another family contacted Social Security lawyer Landau after their lawyer did not file the medical records they procured with the Federal Government and the case was lost.

Social Security Gives Ground On Standardized Testing; Comment Period On Mental Illness Listings To Be Reopened

A press release from Social Security:

The Social Security Administration announced today that it will publish a notice clarifying part of the recently proposed “Revised Medical Criteria for Evaluating Mental Disorders.”

In order to address some public misunderstanding, the notice will better explain how Social Security would consider the use of standardized testing when it determines disability for people who have a mental disorder.

The original public comment period ended on November 17th, but Social Security will reopen the comment period to provide an additional 15 days from the date of publication of the Federal Register notice to allow additional comment on our proposed policy regarding the use of standardized tests.

To read the entire set of proposals, the new notice about the proposed rule on testing, and all of the public comments, go to www.regulations.gov and use the search function to find Docket
No. SSA-2007-0101.

Note that there is no talk of clarifying what was meant by the change in the "B" criteria or the changes in the mental retardation listings.

The standardized testing language startled me at first but eventually I concluded that Social Security had not meant anything much by it. Other than for mental retardation and brain damage there simply are not any testing instruments for mental illness that Social Security could possibly justify using.

Keep your eyes on what Social Security does with the "B" criteria and the mental retardation listings. That's where the story is here. Giving ground on one point that you never really cared about can be a good way of defusing criticism on other points that you really do care about. I do not think that Social Security planned this but they do seem to have latched onto this as one way of disarming critics, particularly NAMI.

IOM Studies

The Institutes of Medicine (IOM) at the behest of Social Security has reviewed the disability listings on cardiovascular disorders and HIV-AIDS.

Let me give you a quick summary of the cardiovascular report: "Blah, blah, blah ... Whatever else you do, you MUST, MUST, MUST give us more money for research." The crack team of researchers recommended that Social Security consider making use of exercise testing in evaluating ischemic heart disease. In case you are not familiar with Social Security's cardiovascular listings, they have made extensive use of exercise testing in evaluating ischemic heart disease for decades.

The HIV-AIDS report is better. IOM recommends that "SSA should use CD4 count as an indicator of disability. Specifically, CD4 > 50 cells/mm3 is an indicator that a claimant’s HIV infection is disabling."

Is The COLA Fair?

From Tara Siegel Bernard's blog at the New York Times:

You could almost hear the collective groan from Social Security recipients after they learned that their benefits would not increase in 2011 because of the low rate of inflation. ...

But what retirees may find even more irksome is the fact that the measure that determines whether they’ll get a raise isn’t even based on the spending patterns of retirees — it’s based on the buying habits of working people. ...

So isn’t it only fair that cost-of-living adjustments for retirees be based on figures that are actually relevant to retirees? ...

Such an index already exists. Created by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the experimental index tracks the spending habits of households headed by individuals 62 or older ...

Called the CPI-E, it reflects the fact that older people spend a greater percentage of their budget on medical care (about 11 percent, compared with the 5 to 6 percent spent by everyone else) and housing, but less on categories like apparel or education. ...

How do they compare? The cost of living for the elderly has increased at a faster pace than the other indexes, but perhaps not quite as fast as you might think. Prices increased 36.1 percent for the elderly from December 1997 to December 2009, compared with 33.8 for the CPI-W and 33.9 percent for the index that includes some retired people, according to the paper. So, on average, the costs for the elderly grew about 0.1 percentage points more each year than the other indexes, Mr. Penner said.

Even if Social Security were pegged to the experimental index, however, it would not have resulted in a cost of living adjustment for the past two years, he added. ...

New Hearing Office In Phoenix

From KTAR:

Last year, Phoenix was selected for [a new hearing] office, which joined existing offices in Phoenix and Tucson.

Slowly but surely, it seems to be working. Since the new office began hearing cases in June, the reported wait time for a decision in the greater Phoenix area had dropped from 477 days to 405 days by late October, according to office director Michele Ridge....

The office expects to eventually hear an average of 350 to 400 cases a month.

Government Shutdown Looming?

The speaker, Grover Norquist, is one of the most important gurus of the Republican Party, perhaps the most important. Notice the passive aggressive nature of his message which is, essentially, "Republicans won't shut down government. Democrats will shut it down if they don't do what the voters -- speaking through Republicans -- demand."

Abandon Your Omnibus Fantasies

From the National Journal:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has effectively killed any hopes of passing an omnibus appropriations bill in the lame duck, announcing Thursday that he is opposed to such a measure. Congress will be forced to keep the government operating through a continuing resolution. ...

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, said Wednesday that he expected a decision Thursday on whether Democrats would try to pass a complete omnibus for the rest of the fiscal year, or what is likely to be a shorter-term continuing resolution that freezes federal funding at fiscal 2010 levels. But McConnell's announcement signals a lack of GOP support for that course in the Senate, meaning Democrats will likely have to settle on a continuing resolution. Language for such a bill is being drafted by House and Senate appropriators, aides have said.

A lengthy continuing resolution is bad for Social Security because the agency faces rising workloads. I am very afraid that we are looking at continuing resolutions for the rest of this fiscal year and maybe the next as well.

GAO Study On Effects Of Raising Retirement Age On Disability Claims

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a report with the title, Raising the Retirement Ages Would Have Implications for Older Workers and SSA Disability Rolls. Below are some excerpts from the report's somewhat preliminary findings and one chart, just in case any reader thinks the report is dealing with a minor problem that can be safely ignored (click on chart to view it full size):

• While general improvements in longevity, health, and workplace conditions over recent decades suggest that most workers would be capable of working to a later retirement age, many older workers would face health or physical challenges that could prevent them from working longer.
• [A]bout one-quarter of age 60-61 workers—those just prior to early retirement eligibility and most likely to be impacted by a change in retirement age—from 1998 to 2008 reported a work-limiting health condition, and about two-thirds of those who work report having a job that is physically demanding.
• Raising the EEA [Earliest Eligibility Age] or FRA [Full Retirement Age] could increase the number of applications to and beneficiaries of DI [Disability Insurance] and other assistance programs, as well as change retirement benefits.
• A few researchers have begun to study the effects of the prior increase in the FRA, and two studies conclude that the increase has led to more DI applications.
• Experts we interviewed indicated that modifications to the DI program and policy changes that provide alternative income support for low-income workers or employment support could help older workers who are unable to work, do not qualify for DI benefits, and are unable to receive enough support from existing programs.... Some proposals to support older workers include modifying the DI program, such as by allowing determinations of “partial disability” similar to how the Veterans Administration determines disability.
• Raising the EEA would likely have larger effects than a comparable rise in the FRA on retirement decisions, DI applications and awards, and on vulnerable older workers because it would remove the age-62 early retirement option, as opposed to lowering benefits for all early retirees.