It's Not A Good Idea To Mess With Social Security

     A false rumor about the demise of Social Security in Brazil led to a run on banks in that country.

Social Security Subcommittee Announces Hearing

     From a press release:

U.S. Congressman Sam Johnson (R-TX), Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security, today announced the third in a series of hearings on the President’s and other bipartisan entitlement reform proposals.  This hearing will focus on proposed adjustments to Social Security benefits, as included in the President’s Fiscal Year 2014 Budget, the report by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, and the report of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Debt Reduction Task Force.  The hearing will take place on Thursday, May 23, 2013, in B-318 Rayburn House Office Building, beginning at 9:30 a.m.

Call Me Maybe?

     From a notice of final rule-making set to appear in the Federal Register tomorrow:

To address recent court cases, we are making final the rules that allow the ALJ to determine that a person other than the claimant or any other party to the hearing may appear at the hearing by telephone. In a recent Federal case, a District Court Judge held that we could not take a medical expert’s testimony by telephone without prior notice to the claimant, and over the claimant’s objections, unless we amended our regulations to allow witnesses to appear by telephone. Edwards v. Astrue, No. 3:10cv1017, 2011 WL 3490024 (D. Conn. Aug. 10, 2011). Other courts have made similar rulings. These final rules address concerns raised in Edwards and other cases.... 

Our final rules provide that the ALJ will determine how any person other than the claimant or any other party to the hearing will appear at the hearing, whether in person, by video teleconferencing, or by telephone. If the ALJ determines that any person will appear at the hearing by telephone, the ALJ will notify the claimant and any other party to the hearing in advance of the hearing. If th e claimant or any other party to the hearing objects to any other person appearing by video teleconferencing or by telephone, the ALJ will decide how that person will appear. Our final rules also clarify that the claimant or any other party to the hearing may request to appear at the hearing by telephone. The ALJ will allow the claimant or other party to appear by telephone if the ALJ determines that extraordinary circumstances exist which prevent the claimant or other party from appearing in person or by video teleconferencing.

Yelp Reviews A Field Office

     Yelp allows anyone to post a review of just about any entity dealing with the public and that includes Social Security field offices. Most field offices have not been reviewed but the field office in San Francisco's Chinatown has received quite some interesting reviews. Members of the public should expect lines and delays at that office but the Social Security employees do speak Chinese!

Transition Report For The New Commissioner Of Social Security

     The Strengthen Social Security Coalition has produced a "Transition Report for the New Commissioner of Social Security", not that there is any sign that President will soon nominate a new Commissioner.
     Below is the press conference at which the report was introduced.      A bit more could have been done to promote this report and press conference.

News From NOSSCR Conference

     Here are a few items from yesterday's National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) Conference in Washington:

• David Camp received the Eileen Sweeney Distinguised Service Award. Camp spearheaded the legal assault on the "secret ALJ" policy.
• Acting Commissioner Carolyn Colvin said that Social Security is now 60 days out in scheduling appointments with its field offices, that is, that if you call in wanting to make an appointment to transact business with the agency, expect a 60 day wait. She also related that she had recently visited the agency's field office in Alexandria, VA. She was told that customers were lining up starting at 7:30 in the morning. The office opens at 9:00.
• Glenn Sklar, Social Security's Deputy Commissioner for Disability Adjudication and Review, said that his agency expects to introduce an Appeals Council status report in August 2013 as part of its appointed representative services package. He also showed a chart demonstrating that more than 25% of claimants now receive their hearings by video.
• Nancy Shor, NOSSCR's retiring Executive Director, received two well deserved standing ovations. She said that she was hearing the idea of time limited disability benefits more and more often.

Charlotte ALJ Harper Passes

     Charlotte Administrative Law Judge Richard Harper has passed away. He was the Administrative Law Judge in Charge (ALJIC) of that office until the name of the job changed to Hearing Office Chief Administrative Law Judge (HOCALJ). He remained in that position until quite recently. It will give readers some idea of how long he managed that office that I interviewed with him for a staff attorney position in 1978!

CRS Report On Proposals To Cut Social Security Disability

     William R. Morton has done a report for the Congressional Research Service (CRS) on "An Overview of Proposals to Reduce the Growth in SSDI [Social Security Disability Insurance] Rolls."  The report is impressively footnoted but to say it breaks no new ground would be an understatement. I keep thinking I must have read this before even though it's brand new. 

     Morton accepts the premise that the Social Security Disability Reform Act of 1984 relaxed the criteria for approval based upon mental illness or musculoskeletal ailments even though a simple reading of that Act shows that it did nothing of the sort. Apparently, Morton never bothered with simple reading the Act. 

     Morton also has a poor understanding of the proposals that have been on the table since forever. For instance, Morton examines the possibility of making Social Security hearings before Administrative Law Judges adversarial. He thinks an experiment with adversarial hearings might be a good idea. Morton is aware that an experiment was tried previously but he is clearly unaware of the results -- a lot of expense but no effect upon the rate at which disability claims were approved -- a point made recently by former Commissioner Astrue. Why didn't Morton ask someone at Social Security what happened when this was tried previously? Morton is also unaware that since the time of that prior experiment the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) has been passed. Because of EAJA, if Social Security went to adversarial hearings, the agency would end up paying the attorney fees for most claimants who got approved. In my view, bring on the adversarial hearings. They wouldn't hurt my clients but they would sure help my bottom line!

     The biggest thing reassuring me about the future of the Social Security disability programs is the unsophisticated nature of its opposition. There's a good chance that even though Republicans want to make it harder to get Social Security disability benefits, unsophisticated reports like this one will cause them to stumble into unworkable proposals or even into proposals that are contrary to their goals. I have yet to read a study or proposal that worries me. They're all stale rehashings of ideas which have already failed or ideas which haven't been tried because they're so obviously unworkable.