Out Of Control Government?

     Council 220 of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the union local that represents most Social Security employees, has posted its June 2012 newsletter, which includes the graphic posted above.

Country Music and Social Security

     Social Security has a country music fan among its public relations staff.

Cashing A Dead Woman's Checks For 26 Years

     From Huffington Post  :

Willie Mae Shaughnesy died in 1984, according to Texas state records. But that didn't stop the government from sending her Social Security checks, and allegedly, it didn't stop her son from cashing them. 

Last week, a U.S. attorney in southeast Texas charged Kline Fisher Budd, an 80-year-old man believed to be Shaughnesy's son, with theft of government property  . ...

The whole thing began to unravel in 2010 when someone at the Social Security Administration decided to check up on Shaughnesy after noticing that she would have been more than 104 years old at that point. By then, according to the U.S. attorney's office, the SSA had paid more than $231,000   into Shaughnesy's account following her death.

Andy Griffith: 1926 -2012

     I am sorry to note the passing of another fellow North Carolinian, Andy Griffith, a man who was widely and rightly beloved, particularly for his performance as Sheriff Andy Taylor on the Andy Griffith show.

     North Carolinians were and are proud of Andy Griffith and his body of work. To give you an idea, the Carolina Hurricanes NHL Hockey team, based in Raleigh, was in the 2002 Stanley Cup finals against the Detroit Red Wings. Yes, a North Carolina team in the Stanley Cup finals is incongruous and a  Detroit sportswriter referred to Raleigh as that time as Mayberry. Were we insulted? Hell, no. We were quite proud of the reference. T-shirts were printed. Of course, Raleigh is not a tiny town but we're quite happy to embrace Mayberry values and so is the rest of the state. Who wouldn't be? We're proud that the show was set in the fictional town of Mayberry, NC. Andy Griffith's home town of Mount Airy, NC (which, incidentally is near the geographic feature of Pilot Mountain -- does the name Mount Pilot ring a bell?) especially embraces its association with Mayberry. By the way, although the Hurricanes lost in the Stanley Cup finals in 2002, they won the Stanley Cup in 2006.

Happy 4th Of July!

Maybe We've Gotten Carried Away By The Whole Idea Of Rehabilitation

     The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has put out a report with the title Employment For People With Disabilities: Little Is Known about the Effectiveness of Fragmented and Overlapping Programs. Here is an excerpt:

GAO identified 45 programs that supported employment for people with disabilities in fiscal year 2010, reflecting a fragmented system of services. The programs were administered by nine federal agencies and overseen by even more congressional committees. All programs overlapped with at least one other program in that they provided one or more similar employment service to a similar population—people with disabilities. ...[A]mong six selected programs that only serve people with disabilities—including the Department of Education’s Vocational Rehabilitation program and the Social Security Administration’s Ticket to Work program—officials cited more consistent coordination. Most (32) of the 45 programs surveyed tracked at least one employment-related outcome measure for people with disabilities, but overall little is known about the effectiveness of these programs.

      I wonder if Congressional fascination with rehabilitation is in a sense a defense mechanism. We want to believe that even if we get sick that we can find a way to make life go on as before. We are too eager to believe that there is no health obstacle too big to overcome. We desperately want to believe that illness or injury won't take away from us things that we hold dear and for many people that includes work.

New 1695 Problem

     The form 1695 is the form that an attorney submits to Social Security that allows for direct payment of fees. The form includes the attorney's Social Security number. Social Security's current policy is to include this form in the claimant's file but to obscure the attorney's Social Security number. I have two problems with this. First, some disability files are still paper. Non-disability files are always paper. I don't think that marking through the attorney's Social Security number will completely obscure the attorney's Social Security number if one has access to the paper form. Second, and more important, many attorneys who represent Social Security claimants work for law firms. An attorney who works for a law firm must include the firm's Employer Identification Number (EIN) on the 1695. The EIN looks exactly like a Social Security number and functions much like a Social Security number. It is personally identifiable information -- so long as we accept that a corporation is a person. It is certainly corporately identifiable information and could be used for criminal purposes. It might be possible for Social Security employees to use the EIN to access data in Social Security's records on payments of fees to law firms.

     We need a better process. These EINs should not be left exposed and the attorney Social Security numbers in paper files need to be better protected.

AFGE Members Ratify Contract With SSA

     The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the union that represents most Social Security employees, has announced that its members have ratified the new contract that its leaders negotiated with the Social Security Administration (SSA).