Watch Out For Brinksmanship Ahead For Social Security Disability

     Republicans on the House Social Security Subcommittee have issued a press release attacking Vice President Biden's offhand comment that "I guarantee you, flat guarantee you, there will be no changes in Social Security." Their proof that something will be changed is the fact that the Disability Insurance Trust Fund is growing short of funds. The trust fund problem could be solved quickly by allowing inter-fund borrowing, something that has been done before, which would be "no change" as a practical matter but this press release is one of the signs that Republicans in Congress wish to use the Disability Insurance Trust Fund problem as an opening to cutting Social Security benefits.

Beginning To Fight Back

     Adam Hartung writing in Forbes tells us that Americans have reacted to limited economic growth "by feigning disabilities in order to create their own form of social welfare net similar to Europe." Hartung's short piece may be less interesting to me than the vigorous response it received, proof that those who represent the disabled are beginning to fight back against ferocious, unjustified attacks on the disabled population of the United States.

H.I.G. Gives Big Money To Romney Campaign

     H.I.G. Capital, a private equity firm, has given $219,495 to the Mitt Romney campaign this year, making it one of Romney's largest contributors, larger than Bain Capital, Romney's old firm.  H.I.G. is at least the partial owner of Binder and Binder, the largest entity representing Social Security disability claimants. H.I.G. may also have given money to independent groups supporting Romney but that information is not available to the public.

Charges For Nonprogram-Related Services

      From today's Federal Register:

... [W]e collect information from individuals and entities, such as other governmental agencies, and then store this information in our systems. ... When we release this information for a purpose not related to  implementation of our programs, we consider it a nonprogram-related service. Nonprogram-related services are not within our mission, and we are required to recover the cost of providing those services. ... Under our regulations, whenever we determine a request for information is for any purpose not directly related to the administration of the Social Security programs, we require the requester to pay the full cost of providing the information. ...

[W]e are implementing standard fees that are calculated to reflect the full cost of providing information for nonprogram-related purposes ...

The new standard fee schedule per request:

Copy an Electronic Folder.................................... $49
Copy a Paper Folder............................................. 86
Letter Forwarding................................................ 35
3rd Party Manual SSN Verification...................... 29
Regional Office Certification............................... 48
Office of Central Operations Certification.......... 32
W2/W3 Requests.................................................. 38
Record Extract.................................................... 33

      Let me hasten to say that this appears not to be directed at attorneys and others who represent Social Security claimants since they are involved in a program-related service. However, the notice does not specify how Social Security will determine what is program-related and what is nonprogram-related.
     By the way, let me give an example of how the letter forwarding charge would arise. A woman contacts Social Security to file a widow's claim on the account of her husband who disappeared some years earlier. After seven years, if the absence is unexplained the man may be presumed dead. However, Social Security looks in its records and determines that the man is alive and still working. The woman wants her husband's address so she may contact him but Social Security refuses on Privacy Act grounds. However, Social Security will forward a letter to the husband.

Ryan Plan Would End Automatic Medicaid For SSI Recipients

     Another element of Paul Ryan's budget plan: Persons who are approved for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) would no longer be automatically eligible for Medicaid. That would be at the discretion of the states which would be receiving much less federal funding for Medicaid.

Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Wants Work Incentives Planning Programs Back

     Sam Johnson, Chairman of the House Social Security Subcommittee, sent Commissioner Michael Astrue a letter complaining about Astrue's decision to end two programs that assist disability benefits recipients in planning return to work. Apparently, Johnson and Astrue are trading legalistic arguments over the subject. The underlying problem is that Social Security's budget is ridiculously tight and neither program ever demonstrated much than one could reasonably call success. 

     We needs to understand a couple of things:

• Everything anyone can imagine to encourage disability benefits recipients to return to work has been tried, including tossing many people off disability benefits. None of it has succeeded in returning more than a tiny percentage of people to work.
• The only thing anyone can reasonably do to make even a marginal difference in the rate of return to work is to simplify Social Security's return to work incentives. Over the decades, there has been constant Congressional interest in painlessly cutting the numbers of people drawing disability benefits by enticing disability benefits recipients back to work. Again and again, Congress has passed some new incentive program to go on top of the incentive programs already in place.This has left us with a ridiculous crazy quilt of work incentives that almost no one understands. You don't solve the problem by diverting scarce resources to hiring work incentive specialists. Their existence was a symptom of the problem. You solve the problem by simplifying. If the work incentives can't be explained in two simple sentences, they're too complicated.

Another Think Tank Report On Social Security Disability

     The think tanks are really churning out reports on the Social Security disability programs. The latest comes from  Kathy Ruffing of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Her report includes this interesting chart:

     Claims filed are highly sensitive to business cycle? Note that applications for disability benefits began soaring not in 2008 when unemployment soared but in 1998, ten years earlier, at a time of relatively low unemployment. Note also the inverse relationship between unemployment and the disability claim rate in the early 1980s. How do you explain these facts if claims filed are so sensitive to business cycles?

Social Security Starting To Come Up In Presidential Campaign

     To no one's surprise, Democrats are starting to attack the Romney-Ryan ticket over Social Security. Plans for partial privatization of Social Security play well with Republican voters but not with the electorate as a whole.