Some ALJ Testimony

     Some excerpts from the written statements of witnesses at today's hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee:

• Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Larry Butler (31% reversal rate): "The Social Security disability programs are bankrupt. ... Is SSA managing the disability system for the primary benefit of genuinely disabled individuals and taxpayers or has the disability system became a “cash cow” for other “stakeholders” (attorney and non-attorney representatives, medical providers paid through the Medicare and Medicaid programs, pharmaceutical companies, and others)?...  Did SSA management intentionally adopt or implicitly approve a policy now referred to as “paying-down-the-backlog” in order to reduce the backlog? 
• ALJ Thomas Snook (30% reversal rate): I am a Judge in name – but no one works for me. Moreover, I am judge who, according to our Chief Judge, has no authority over the personnel in my courtroom. In fact, I cannot even set the time and place of a hearing. Former Commissioner Astrue took this authority away from me. ... An outstanding attorney who practices before me recently phrased it differently: “The disability system has turned into a cottage industry for certain claimants’representatives.” He was referring to large firms who use TV advertising and other methods to sign up clients. Claimants’ representatives collectively make $1.7 billion in fees annually. That is a large cottage industry. The largest claimants’ firm Binder and Binder was according to the Wall Street Journal was bought by a hedge fund. [Actually, a private equity firm. There is a difference. Hedge funds don't acquire businesses, just securities.] ... Social Security is an Agency that doesn’t listen to its judges. In fact, the line judges are union members because the Agency refused to talk to us. 
• ALJ Drew Swank (16% reversal rate):  Social Security disability programs, however, were never designed to be a safety net for the jobless or a substitute for unemployment insurance compensation. Furthermore, there is an inherent inconsistency with the notion that a person can switch back and forth between working when the economy is good and coll ecting disability benefits when the economy is bad. ... Working or not, disabled or not, people are increasingly seeing Social Security disability benefits as a relatively easy means of earning a lifetime of government payments, and a gateway to a host of other government entitlement programs. ...  “Pay so they go away” has been an unsuccessful strategy in reducing the hearing backlog, and it will never work. For every individual improperly awarded disability benefits, there will be an incentive for others who likewise do not qualify to apply for them as well — adding to the backlog.

Round Up The Lowest Allowing ALJs And Call Them Models?

     Here's the witness list for tomorrow's hearing before the House Oversight Committee, with the reversal rates for each of the Administrative Law Judges in parentheses after their name:

• The Honorable Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-Oklahoma), Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, United States Senate
• Glenn E. Sklar, Deputy Commissioner, Disability Adjudication and Review, Social Security Administration
• The Honorable Larry J. Butler, Administrative Law Judge, Miami Office of Disability Adjudication and Review, Social Security Administration (31%)
• The Honorable Thomas W. Snook, Administrative Law Judge, Miami Office of Disability Adjudication and Review, Social Security Administration (30%)
• The Honorable J.E. Sullivan, Administrative Law Judge, Pittsburgh Office of Administrative Law Judges, U.S. Department of Labor (14%)
• The Honorable Drew A. Swank, Administrative Law Judge, Pittsburgh Office of Administrative Law Judges, U.S. Department of Labor (16%)
• Thomas D. Sutton, Board of Directors, National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives

     Are these ALJs the committee's majority considers to be models? I don't know any of these ALJs but I wonder whether, after meeting them, the Republican committee members will still consider all of them to be admirable.

DOMA Found Unconstitutional

     The Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA), which prevented the Social Security Administration and other agencies from recognizing same sex marriages, has been found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

     Unfortunately, this leaves open the question of whether Social Security can recognize same sex marriages when the married person has moved to a state that refuses to recognize same sex marriages since the Social Security Act relies upon the law of the state in which the person is domiciled. Apparently, the ruling is so broad that it is likely that the Court will rule that state laws that refuse to recognize same sex marriages solemnized in other states are also unconstitutional. However, it will probably be at least a year before the Supreme Court rules on that issue. In the meantime, my bet is that Social Security will, at the least, recognize the same sex marriages of those who have moved to a state that refuses to recognize same sex marriages as deemed marriages. Update: On second thought, I can't bet on deemed marriage being the solution because the statute says that the only sort of legal impediment that qualifies one for a deemed marriage is "an impediment (I) resulting from the lack of dissolution of a previous marriage or otherwise arising out of such previous marriage or its dissolution, or (II) resulting from a defect in the procedure followed in connection with such purported marriage." Neither of these applies to a situation where a person duly married in one state moves to another state which refuses to give full faith and credit to the marriage.
     Update: It's not particularly relevant to Social Security but you ought to read some of what Justice Scalia said in dissent. Let's just say, he really disagreed with the majority opinion which he categorized as "black-robed supremacy."  He had a few other things to say as well. As we say in the South, bless his heart.

Make Your Choice Early -- And Don't Move

     From a Notice of Proposed Rule-Making (NPRM) set to appear in the Federal Register tomorrow:

To better utilize our limited resources and make our hearing process more efficient for all claimants, we propose to modify our rules so that we would notify a claimant earlier in the process, before an ALJ is assigned or a hearing is scheduled, that he or she has the right to object to appearing at the hearing by video teleconferencing. If the claimant does not want to appear at the hearing in this manner, the claimant must object in writing within 30 days after the date he or she receives this notice. If we receive a timely objection, we will schedule the claimant for an in person hearing, with one limited exception. 

The limited exception to this rule would apply when the claimant moves to a different residence while his or her request for a hearing is pending. ...

     Note that this is a proposal. Anyone can file comments on it. It will be many months, probably well over a year before it can become part of Social Security's regulations. It may be modified or withdrawn before that ever happens.

Paying Money To Dead People

     The Wall Street Journal is running a story on a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General concerning payment of benefits to 1,546 people listed in the Death Master File as dead. 

     It's funny. I had seen the same report and thought it showed that on the whole Social Security was doing a good job. I thought about posting about the report but decided that it wasn't of any real consequence. Obviously, I don't think it's a good idea to pay money to people listed as dead and I support reasonable efforts to prevent this but the error rate discussed here seems so low that I think things are going pretty well.

     Social Security's reaction was to point to its 99.9% payment accuracy rate. Isn't that good enough? 

     Was this report really newsworthy? 

     Update: Matthew Yglesias makes the same point. Social Security's payment accuracy rate is astonishingly good.

An Original Type Of Fraud

     From Inside NOVA, which, I think, stands for Northern Virginia:

A former Woodbridge woman was sentenced Friday to one day in prison, plus three years of supervised release, for committing Social Security fraud by helping her husband claim he was dead. ...

According to documents on file at U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Rios’ husband, Luis Melecio Rios Guizado, was wanted on charges of taking indecent liberties with a minor in Prince William County in 2007 when he fled to Peru, his native country.

Rios visited Guizado there and her gave her a false Peruvian death certificate, claiming he had died, “in order to have the charges filed against him in Prince William County dropped,” according to a news release from the Social Security Administration. ...

According to court documents, Rios presented the fake death certificate in Prince William General District Court in May 2007, in order to quash her husband’s outstanding warrant. She then presented the fraudulent document to the Social Security Administration in June 2007, so she could collect survivors’ benefits for herself and her five children, court documents state.

Authorities say that Rios and her children collected $127,000 in Social Security benefits between June 2007 and May 2011.

I'm Not Expecting Calm Deliberation

     The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has scheduled a hearing for June 27 at 9:30 a.m. on Oversight of Rising Social Security Disability Claims and the Role of Administrative Law Judges. This is supposed to be the first of a series of hearings on this subject. In advance of the hearing, there is an Associated Press piece saying that Social Security's Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) are approving claims at "strikingly high rates." There is also mention of "management problems" which have led to "misspending." The article quotes Rep. James Lankford, R-Okla., chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Energy, Policy, Health Care, and Entitlements as saying "This is not one or two judges out there just going rogue and saying they are going to approve a lot of cases. This is a very, very high rate" of approving claims.

     I suppose this particular House Committee does some good but under both Democrats and Republicans, it has had a reputation for conducting partisan witch hunts when the White House has been in the hands of the opposite party.

     By the way, didn't Social Security's ALJs as a group receive an official award from the American Bar Association back in the early 1990s for demonstrating courage in resisting outside pressure?

Error In Blast E-Mail From SSA

     I received this e-mail from Social Security today, probably because I have set up a MySSA account:

Affordable Health Care

Need health insurance or know someone who does?  Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, more Americans now qualify to get coverage that fits their needs and budgets.  Visit the Health Insurance Marketplace at www.HealthCare.gov or call 1-800-318-2596 to get more information.  If you are deaf or hard of hearing, you may call 1-855-889-4325.

 

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Questions for SSA? Contact Us

     What you see if you try to go to the HealthCare.gov link is not HealthCare.gov but a Social Security website asking that you enter the "Word of the Day." I think somebody made a mistake. I wonder how many people got this e-mail with a bad link.

     Update: They're resent the e-mail with the correct link.