Theresa Gruber, Social Security's Assistant Deputy Commissioner for Operations, testified today before the House Ways and Means Committee on Social Security number verification and identity theft. Her written testimony is now available.
Apr 14, 2011
Apr 13, 2011
President On Social Security
From a White House summary of President Obama's speech today:
The President does not believe that Social Security is a driver of our near-term deficit problems or is currently in crisis. But he supports bipartisan efforts to strengthen Social Security for the long haul, because its long-term challenges are better addressed sooner than later to ensure that it remains the rock-solid benefit for older Americans that it has been for past generations. The President in the State of the Union laid out his principles for Social Security reform which he believes should form the basis for bipartisan negotiations that could proceed in parallel to deficit negotiations:
- Strengthen retirement security for the low-income and vulnerable; maintain robust disability and survivors’ benefits.
- No privatization or weakening of the Social Security system; reform must strengthen Social Security and restore long-term solvency.
- No current beneficiary should see the basic benefit reduced; nor will we accept an approach that slashes benefits for future generations.
Lawsuit Alleges ALJ Bias In Queens, NY
From the New York Times:
The Queens office that hears appeals of Social Security disability cases is well known to lawyers, judges and many other New Yorkers as an inhospitable place to seek benefits. ...
Now, a class-action lawsuit filed on Tuesday in Federal District Court in Brooklyn says that five of the eight Queens judges are not just difficult, but also biased against the applicants — many of whom are poor or immigrants — and have systematically denied benefits to the disabled by making legal and factual errors. ...
The five judges named in the suit are David Z. Nisnewitz, Michael D. Cofresi, Seymour Fier, Marilyn P. Hoppenfeld and Hazel C. Strauss. ...
The Times’s analysis found that the rejection rate for the entire Queens office, 50.9 percent, was the highest in New York State, and far higher than in other New York City boroughs; in the current fiscal year, Manhattan has an average denial rate of 37 percent, the Bronx 33 percent, and Brooklyn 14.5 percent.
Apr 12, 2011
House Democrats Worried
A group of House Democrats apparently fear that the President will propose Social Security reductions on Wednesday, since they have sent the President a letter warning him not to cut Social Security or risk losing their support.
Bold Republican Plan
The Republican Study Committee, which includes most Republican in the House of Representatives, has issued a report calling for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) to end, with block grants to the states being substituted -- and the block grants would be at the 2007 spending level. The report also calls for a 25.6% reduction in discretionary spending, allowing Medicare beneficiaries to opt out, raising the Medicare age to 67, ending Medicaid and substituting block grants to the states, and raising full retirement age for Social Security to 70, with everyone who is currently under 60 being affected.
If this is the Republican platform for 2012, voters will definitely have a choice.
If this is the Republican platform for 2012, voters will definitely have a choice.
President To Propose Ending FICA Cap
From the Los Angeles Times:
President Obama will call for shrinking the nation's long-term deficits by raising taxes on wealthier Americans and requiring them to pay more into Social Security, drawing a barbed contrast with a Republican plan to save money by deeply slashing Medicare, Medicaid and other domestic spending. ...
Obama would end tax breaks for households earning more than $250,000 a year, trim Pentagon spending, lift a cap on the amount of income that is assessed for Social Security, and save on Medicare and Medicaid through alterations to healthcare delivery, administration officials said. He will speak about 1:30 p.m. Eastern time on the campus of George Washington University.
Final Appropriations Numbers For Social Security
The House Appropriations Committee has finally posted numbers on the cuts for various agencies under the final continuing resolution that will fund agencies through the rest of the fiscal year (FY). These numbers show no specific cut for the Social Security Administration other than a 0.2% cut being imposed across the board on all civilian agencies.
If I understand correctly, this means that Social Security's operating budget for the rest of the fiscal year will be the same as for the last fiscal year, less 0.2%, which would be about a $23 million reduction, at a time when Social Security's workloads are increasing dramatically. The Republican appropriations bill would have reduced Social Security's funding by $125 million from FY 2010, not counting recissions in funds already appropriated for construction of a new national computer center. The President's bill would have given Social Security almost a billion dollars more than FY 2010.
The bottom line is that under this level of funding, Social Security can probably avoid furloughing employees -- and I would guess that to have been the only goal shared by Democrats and Republicans -- but backlogs will grow and service will deteriorate. I am curious to know whether any overtime will be possible for the rest of FY 2011. Social Security has been getting a lot of its workload accomplished using overtime. No overtime would be very bad news for Social Security. Also, we need to know to what extent Social Security will have to freeze hiring for the rest of FY 2011.
Funding for Social Security's new national computer center is more precarious than anyone, including Republicans, would like. That money will have to be painfully squeezed out of the budget each year until it is finished.
Update: That 0.2% reduction in funding must not have been applied exactly evenly. According to the actual bill, Social Security's reduction was $26 million, not $23 million. More importantly, $75 million in funds previously appropriated to Social Security for information technology, telecommunications hardware and software infrastructure was rescinded. This is on top of the $200 million in rescissions for the national computer center. We already knew about that one.
This is going to be a mess to manage. Social Security is on a path towards administrative collapse.
If I understand correctly, this means that Social Security's operating budget for the rest of the fiscal year will be the same as for the last fiscal year, less 0.2%, which would be about a $23 million reduction, at a time when Social Security's workloads are increasing dramatically. The Republican appropriations bill would have reduced Social Security's funding by $125 million from FY 2010, not counting recissions in funds already appropriated for construction of a new national computer center. The President's bill would have given Social Security almost a billion dollars more than FY 2010.
The bottom line is that under this level of funding, Social Security can probably avoid furloughing employees -- and I would guess that to have been the only goal shared by Democrats and Republicans -- but backlogs will grow and service will deteriorate. I am curious to know whether any overtime will be possible for the rest of FY 2011. Social Security has been getting a lot of its workload accomplished using overtime. No overtime would be very bad news for Social Security. Also, we need to know to what extent Social Security will have to freeze hiring for the rest of FY 2011.
Funding for Social Security's new national computer center is more precarious than anyone, including Republicans, would like. That money will have to be painfully squeezed out of the budget each year until it is finished.
Update: That 0.2% reduction in funding must not have been applied exactly evenly. According to the actual bill, Social Security's reduction was $26 million, not $23 million. More importantly, $75 million in funds previously appropriated to Social Security for information technology, telecommunications hardware and software infrastructure was rescinded. This is on top of the $200 million in rescissions for the national computer center. We already knew about that one.
This is going to be a mess to manage. Social Security is on a path towards administrative collapse.
Proposed Change In Evidence Collection Regulations
From a notice of proposed rule-making posted by the Social Security Administration in today's Federal Register (footnote omitted):
We propose to modify the requirement to recontact your medical source(s) first when we need to resolve an inconsistency or insufficiency in the evidence he or she provided....
Sometimes the evidence we receive from your treating physician, psychologist, or other medical source is inadequate for us to determine whether you are disabled; that is, we either do not have sufficient evidence to determine whether you are disabled or if after weighing the evidence we determine we cannot reach a conclusion about whether you are disabled. Our current regulations describe what actions we will take in these situations. Currently, we will first recontact your medical source to determine whether the additional information we need is readily
available, unless we know from past experience that the source either cannot or will not provide the necessary findings. We will seek additional evidence or clarification from your medical source when the report from your medical source contains a conflict or ambiguity that must be resolved, does not contain all the necessary information, or does not appear to be based on medically acceptable clinical and laboratory diagnostic techniques....
[W]e propose to modify the requirement in Sec. Sec. 404.1512(e) and 416.912(e) that we first recontact your medical source(s) when we need to resolve an inconsistency or insufficiency in the evidence he or she provided. Under our proposed rule, after we have made every reasonable effort to help you get medical reports from your medical sources, we will determine the best way to resolve the
inconsistency or insufficiency. We will do that by taking one or more of several actions, including recontacting your medical source(s) when we need to resolve an inconsistency or insufficiency in the evidence he or she provided. ...
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