Astrue Interview

     The IBM Center for the Business of Government interviewed Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue for its show on WFED radio last week. You can hear and view the interview below. There is not much new to the interview. I am incredulous at Astrue's hope that health information technology improvements will cause the length of time needed to get a hearing before a Social Security Administrative Law Judge to decrease or that these improvements will even allow the elimination of reconsideration. I see no connection at all. The problem is lack of resources at Social Security. Speeding up the acquisition of medical records does little to help.

OIG Report On SSA Reviews Of ALJ Decisions

     Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has done a report on Social Security's efforts to review Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) decisions. The report makes it clear that it is impossible for Social Security to target individual ALJs for review. The Administrative Procedure Act (APA) would have to be changed before Social Security could do that. 

     The APA is one of the proudest achievements of American legal thinking. Amending it to allow targeting of ALJs isn't going to happen. The APA is fundamental to American government. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have any interest in touching the APA.

Social Security Subcommittee Hearing

     Here's the witness list for today's hearing before the House Social Security Subcommittee, with my description of one's witness' testimony:

PANEL 1:

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


PANEL 2:

Trudy Lyon-Hart
Director, Office of Disability Determination Services, Vermont Agency of Human Services, on behalf of the National Council of Disability Determination Directors
Testimony

Lisa D. Ekman
Senior Policy Advisor, Health & Disability Advocates on behalf of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Social Security Task Force
Testimony

Dan Bertoni
Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office
Testimony

Leighton Chan, M.D. Chief, Rehabilitation Medicine Department, National Institutes of Health
Testimony 

• If I hear one more person involved in rehabilitation talking about "shifting paradigms" I think I'm going to start throwing things. Dr. Chan talked about a project he is working on "to create a real time functional assessment that is rapid, reliable and objective. This project assesses the feasibility of developing Computer Adaptive Test (CAT) instruments that could be considered for integration into the SSA’s disability evaluation processes. CAT methodology, coupled with Item Response Theory (IRT), is used to measure outcomes precisely across the full continuum of human functioning. IRT/CAT represents a simple form of artificial intelligence software requiring a computer for administration." I will not bore my readers with a full description of IRT/CAT except to say that the idea that it has anything to offer to disability determination is laughable from any point of view.

Nicole Maestas, Ph.D.
Senior Economist, RAND Corporation
Testimony

Tough Sledding At The Supreme Court

     It sounds like it was tough sledding at the Supreme Court for the attorney arguing for Social Security children's benefits for twins conceived after the death of their father using frozen sperm.

It's Different In Persia

     President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has reportedly appointed Saeed Mortaz (pictured here with Ahmadinejad) to become head of the Iranian Social Security Fund even though there are pending charges against Mortaz for the torture and murder of prisoners.

Start The Backtracking Now

From Huffington Post (with one interjection from me):  

Two separate campaigns have been launched to pressure AARP to stand firm against cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits. The campaigns follow a report by HuffPost that the influential senior citizens lobby will soon be holding a private, principals-only "salon-style conversation" ["Salon-style conversation"? What is this -- 18th century Paris?] with a host of advocates of entitlement cuts. ...

AARP's listening tour officially launches on Monday and is dubbed "You've Earned a Say and We're Listening."

One AARP volunteer who attended a two-day training last week wrote HuffPost to say that the listening tour appeared to be aimed at shifting AARP policy in favor of cuts to benefits....

AARP has expressed an openness to benefit cuts in the past, only to backtrack under pressure from its membership. The organization, in recent years, has become increasingly entangled with its growing insurance operation.

AFL-CIO Says Social Security Benefits Should Be Raised

     From an AFL-CIO press release:

It is time to stop thinking of Social Security as a problem and start thinking of it as a key solution to our retirement security crisis. ...

While Social Security is an obvious solution to the crisis, its current benefit levels are too modest. Social Security’s income replacement rate is one of the lowest of all the industrialized countries. To compensate for the decline of traditional pensions and the loss of retirement savings, Social Security retirement benefits must be increased across the board, which would be especially meaningful for low-income seniors. ...

The reason why the debate in Washington, D.C., has gone so far in the wrong direction is that the enemies of Social Security have spent enormous amounts of money spreading misinformation about the program. The truth is that Social Security is not in crisis. ...

Admin Leave During Investigations Costly

     From the Washington Times:

The Social Security Administration paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent years to a handful of employees who were placed on administrative leave for more than half a year while officials considered misconduct accusations against them or their involvement in illegal acts.

The agency’s Office of Inspector General said in a report dated Friday and made public Wednesday that from October 2005 through January 2009, 17 employees each racked up at least 1,000 hours — or 25 weeks — of paid administrative leave totaling $1.5 million while officials considered their cases.

In one instance, two teleservice employees placed on paid administrative leave in February 2007 were arrested at their workplace “while in the act of blackmailing/extorting other SSA employees.”