OIG To Focus On Widespread Fraud Investigations; ALJ Lillios Detailed To Help

     From Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG):

Our new pilot ... will focus on allegations involving third-party facilitators [of disability fraud], particularly those that may indicate widespread fraud schemes or conspiracies.  The pilot will focus on allegations involving:

• SSA senior executives, administrative law judges, administrative appeals judges, and other employees;
• attorneys and non-attorney claimant representatives; and
• medical evidence providers, consultative examiners, vocational and medical experts, and other disability contractors.

The Inspector General has asked SSA [Social Security Administration] Associate Chief Administrative Law Judge Paul Lillios to manage this new pilot program.  Judge Lillios has been detailed from SSA to the OIG as a Senior Advisor, reporting to our Assistant Inspector General for Investigations, Rich Rohde.

Why Social Security Is Essential

     Alicia Munnell of the Center for Retirement Research explains in simple terms why Social Security is absolutely essential and why replacing it with a defined contribution plan would be a horrible idea: People are so financially illiterate that they cannot be counted upon to make rational retirement decisions and more financial education won't solve the problem.

     And, by the way, to prove her point do you, gentle reader, even know what a defined contribution plan is?

Representative Ryan Asking About Raising Retirement Age

     No big surprise here, but Representative Paul Ryan, the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, seems to be interested in the effects of raising Social Security's normal retirement age. He recently asked Social Security's Chief Actuary to give him information about the effects of the last increase in the normal retirement age.

SSA Has No Idea Whether The Billions It's Spent On IT Have Done Any Good

     From a report by Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) (footnotes omitted):

Our objective was to determine whether the Social Security Administration (SSA) had achieved the planned cost savingsfor its information technology (IT) initiatives....

In Fiscal Year (FY) 2012, SSA spent approximately$1.5 billion on IT investments. SSA has stated its IT investments have been critical to increasing its average annual employee productivity. For example, the Agency indicated that IT investments in online services and the disability process have allowed it to keep pace with recent workload increases. ...

In an April 2009 report, we noted that SSA’s 7-year projected savings for new and continued IT projects in FYs 2007 through 2009 were $10 to $20 billion. ...

In a 2007 review, we determined that although SSA had established a PIR [Post-Implementation Review] policy, it had not established a process to determine whether its IT projects actually achieved their planned cost savings....

We could not determine whether SSA had realized the planned cost savings for its IT initiatives because SSA had not calculated actual savings after project implementation. Additionally, SSA did not have a process to assess the overall effectiveness of its IT capital planning and investment control process. As a result, SSA did not know whether the IT investments achieved the planned FTE savings or any productivity improvements.

     For years, I have been asking the question: If the enormous IT investment required to implement electronic files at Social Security was cost effective, why didn't Social Security release a report crowing about its success? Now we have the answer. Social Security couldn't release a report crowing about its success because it had no idea whether its electronic files project was a success. It wasn't even trying to find out. I wonder if they weren't trying to find out because they were afraid to find out what the answer would be.
     I'm going to get some responses saying that electronic files are wonderful and asking why I would want to go back to paper files. I don't want to go back to paper files. Doing so would cost even more money. We may as well use the poorly designed system we have. However, I'm pretty sure that if former Commissioner Barnhart had put all that money that went into the switch to electronic files into more personnel to review paper files that the agency's backlogs would be far lower now. I don't care in the least whether some Social Security employee finds electronic files more to their liking. It doesn't matter a bit what Social Security employees like or don't like. It doesn't matter what I like or don't like. The important thing is delivering service to the public. I'm confident that throwing more people at the backlog problem would have worked. It's obvious that throwing IT money at contractors didn't work. We still have enormous backlogs. Everyone is now accustomed to these backlogs, except for the claimants. Huge contractors get rich while claimants die waiting for an answer.

WSJ Fantasizes About Cuts To Social Security

     The Wall Street Journal is fantasizing about cuts to Social Security. It will happen -- just as soon as the Wall Street Journal supports higher taxes on those with high incomes. Anyone want to predict when that will happen?

Attack On Social Security From Children's Advocate

     From WNYC:

The president of the Harlem Children Zone said he's on the college campus circuit to gin up student activism around entitlement spending. As it is, Geoffrey Canada said, seniors are erasing any chance for the next generation to have the safety net they will need and deserve.

"There are a lot of folk who have a lot of money who simply don't need social security. And we can't even begin to have a conversation around means testing for that group," he said. "It's unfair to the next generation." 

Partial Shutdown At Social Security Threatned Life Of SC Man

     From The State of Columbia, SC:

Saturday almost ushered in David White’s last dose of Tasigna, a pill he was receiving free of charge to treat his chronic myeloid leukemia.

The 31-year-old Beaufort resident was participating in a clinical trial with drug maker Novartis, and he qualified for more of the $2,300-per-month drug — if he could prove his date of eligibility for Medicare. That day falls in August 2014, two years after White’s illness forced him to file for disability.

As proof, Novartis required an official document from the Social Security Administration, at a time when the agency was severely slowed by a 16-day, partial government shutdown.
It was only once the shutdown ended, following Congress’ vote to fund the government through Jan. 15, that White got what he needed to secure his lifesaving treatments.

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2013/10/18/3046085/shutdown-threatened-lifesaving.html#storylink=cpy

Former ALJ, Under Investigation, Attempts Suicide

     From the Huntington, WV Herald-Dispatch:

Police are investigating what they called a possible suicide attempt by a former judge under investigation by a U.S. Senate Committee for possible fraud in awarding government disability benefits.

David B. Daugherty was found sitting unconcious in his car in a Barboursville church parking lot about 3:20 p.m. Monday, Barboursville Police Chief Mike Coffey said on Friday.

Coffey said a church worker found Daugherty and called police. When officers arrived at the lot, investigators found a garden hose duct-taped to the exhaust pipe of the car and leading into the passenger compartment through a rear side window. The garden hose was pinched on one end and melted on the other end by the exhaust pipe. Coffey said police also found an empty liquor bottle and empty pill container near the car.

Before an emergency squad arrived, Coffey said police were unsure if Daugherty was alive and used the church's difibrillator to check for a heartbeat, which he had. He was then taken to St. Mary's Medical Center and was breathing on his own shortly thereafter, Coffey said. As of 5 p.m. Friday, he was no longer a patient at St. Mary's. ...