Social Security Awards $233 Million Telecommunications Order To Century Link -- Largest Such Order Ever Awarded By The Federal Government

From a press release:

CenturyLink, Inc. (CTL) recently won a $233 million task order to provide primary managed data networking services over the next five years to the Social Security Administration (SSA) under the Networx Universal contract. The General Services Administration's Networx program is the largest telecommunications contract vehicle ever awarded by the federal government. 

CenturyLink will provide network infrastructure for data, video and voice services to the SSA, which has more than 62,000 employees worldwide.  As the primary service provider, CenturyLink will help SSA drive the pace for the transition from the current providers to the new service providers.

In this capacity, CenturyLink will serve all SSA data centers, regional offices, program service centers, remote operations communications centers and more than 1,500 field office locations around the world. Under the task order, CenturyLink will also provide management and implementation support and lifecycle engineering. 

SSA had previously awarded a broad voice services task order to Qwest, which was acquired by CenturyLink, in 2008. The services that CenturyLink provides under the 2008 award help SSA with everything from internal communications and collaboration via audio conferencing to lowering its disability case hearing backlog via video conferencing.

Appropriations Process Begins In Earnest

     The Labor-HHS Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee has marked up the Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 appropriations bill that covers the Social Security Administration. This is from the Subcommittee's summary of the bill as marked up:

Social Security Program Integrity.—The bill includes $1.024 billion, an increase of $268 million for the Social Security Administration (SSA) to conduct continuing disability reviews and redeterminations of nonmedical eligibility under the Supplemental Security Income program. This investment will save approximately $8.1 billion over 10 years for the Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid programs, a return on investment of $8 for every $1 spent.

     The rest of the summary is unclear on Social Security's overall budget.

Eliminating The F.I.C.A. Cap Would Solve Social Security's Long Term Financing Problems And Would Affect Few Americans

     One proposal to eliminate the long term financing problem for the Social Security trust funds is to eliminate the cap, currently $110,100, on earnings covered by the F.I.C.A.tax that supports the trust funds. The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) has done a study on who would be affected if this becomes law. CEPR also studied an alternate proposal to raise the F.I.C.A. cap to $250,000. The alternate proposal would not completely eliminate the long term financing problem but would dramatically reduce it. The CEPR gives figures for various demographic groups and for each state but the chart below shows the gist of what the study found -- only a small percentage of the population would be affected by increasing the cap to $250,000 and only a tiny additional percentage would be affected by lifting the cap altogether.

     The cap on the Medicare portion of the F.I.C.A. tax was eliminated years ago. It wasn't even particularly controversial then. Why should eliminating the F.I.C.A. cap be that big a problem now?

Many Listings Extended Without Change, Including Mental Disorders

     Social Security is extending without change the following listings of impairments:

• Growth Impairment 100.00
• Musculoskeletal System 1.00 and 101.00
• Respiratory System 3.00 and 103.00
• Cardiovascular System 4.00 and 104.00
• Digestive System 5.00 and 105.00
• Hematological Disorders 7.00 and 107.00
• Skin Disorders 8.00 and 108.00
• Neurological 11.00 and 111.00
• Mental Disorders 12.00 and 112.00

     Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue has twice tried to amend the mental disorders listings. Not long before the 2008 election, Astrue received approval from the Bush Administration to publish a proposed new Listing. Astrue did not promptly send the proposal to the Federal Register for publication as is normally the case. I think it would have been published if McCain had won that election. With Obama winning, the 2008 proposal was shelved.  There is no way of knowing what was in the 2008 proposal but I doubt that I would have liked it. In 2010, Astrue received Obama Administration approval for new proposed mental impairment listings. The proposal was controversial and Social Security had to issue a "clarification." In theory, despite the notice in today's Federal Register, Social Security could attempt to get Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approval for the mental impairment listings proposal made in 2010. Due to the length of time that has passed and the proximity to the election, I doubt that will happen. If it were submitted to OMB today, it probably wouldn't be acted upon until September. It's just too late to do before the election, considering that it would be controversial.

Alan Simpson Can't Take The Heat

     Nancy Altman and Eric Kingson of Social Security Works have an open letter to Alan Simpson on Huffington Post. Responding in kind to Simpson's inflammatory rhetoric, Altman and Kingson talk of Simpson's "bigotry and bullying" and his "undermining of human dignity." They charge him with wanting to "begin pulling apart our Social Security system brick by brick."

     Simpson, by the way, has backed out of his earlier commitment to debate those who oppose his views on Social Security.

You Get What You Pay For

     This is from the Social Security Advisory Board's Aspects of Disability: Decision Making: Data and Materials. CDRs are Continuing Disability Reviews, reviews to determine whether a Social Security disability recipient is still disabled. These are required by statute. Most reviews are supposed to happen every three years. Even the most severely disabled are supposed to be reviewed every seven years (which is a waste of resources). A review by "mailer" is simply sending the disability benefits recipient a form to complete. Assuming the recipient completes the form and does not report that he or she has improved, which few do, it is almost certain that nothing will happen. Medical CDRs involve the collection of medical records to look to see how the recipient is actually doing. Note the dramatic decline in medical CDRs after George W. Bush was elected President. This was because of Social Security's severely restricted operating budget. After Democrats retook control of Congress in 2006 and Social Security's operating budget went up, the medical CDRs started going up and the nearly meaningless mailers went down, although not nearly enough to cross paths.

     This chart tells the story clearly. If you want real reviews to determine whether Social Security disability recipients remain disabled, you have to appropriate sufficient operating funds. This matters greatly since CDRs save about $10.50 for every dollar spent on them.

Fee Payment Numbers

     Below are the numbers on payments of fees to attorneys and others who represent Social Security claimants. While administered by Social Security, these payments come out of the back benefits of the claimants represented. Those who receive these fees pay a user fee to Social Security to cover the costs of administering the payments. Since the attorney or other representative receives his or her fee at about the same time as the claimant receives his or her benefits, these numbers are a good analogue to show how quickly or slowly Social Security is paying benefits to people after they are approved. As the numbers show, these payments vary dramatically from month to month.

Fee Payments
Month/Year	Volume	Amount
Jan-12	29,926	89,749,312.99
Feb-12	43,946	134,207,416.10
Mar-12	47,376	139,571,577.57
Apr-12	38,239	113,225,483.07
May-12	37,648	112,446,283.39

First Social Security Board

Left to right: (seated) Mary M. Dewson; Arthur J. Altmeyer, Chairman; and George E. Bigge. Standing are Jack B. Tate, Acting General Counsel and Frank Bane, (right) Executive Director