Social Security Subcommittee Schedules Hearing On Alleged Fraud

     The House Social Security Subcommittee has scheduled a hearing for January 16 on the alleged Social Security disability fraud in New York.

And You Thought That Sequestration Was Almost Over

     From Politico:

Senate Democrats are coming together on a proposal that would pay for a revival of emergency unemployment benefits through the fall by extending the sequester for one year, senior Democratic aides said.

Republicans are demanding that any extension of unemployment insurance be paid for and, in turn, Democrats are pitching an extension of the sequester’s mandatory savings through 2024. Along with a crackdown on people who draw both disability and unemployment benefits, the proposal would raise roughly $18 billion and fund an extension of an expired unemployment benefits through November.

     Why in the name of God would Democrats be pushing for sequestration through 2024?

OIG Recommending New Tool For Evaluating Hearing Offices And ALJs

     From Analysis of Hearing Offices Using Key Risk Factors, a report from Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG):

We developed a model that measured variances among multiple risk factors . The model analyzes performance and outcome data among ALJs in the same office and uses five risk factors: (1) ALJ allowance rates, (2) ALJ dispositions, (3) ALJ on-the- record (OTR) decision rates, (4) ALJ dismissal rates, and (5) ALJ average processing time. While the Agency’s monitoring process identified a number of potential workload problems at the time of our review , such as ALJ -specific issues and productivity declines, our model offers another method to evaluate the performance of individual hearing offices. 

Using our model and FY 2012 workload data, we identified hearing offices with the highest and lowest variance score s. We believe o utlier hearing office s provide ODAR managers with indications of potential processing issues (high-variance) as well as potential best practices (low - variance). We fou nd 4 regions had 20 percent or more of their hearing offices among the 25 high- variance offices , and 4 regions had 20 percent or more of their hearing offices among the 25 low- variance offices. In discussions with ODAR regional managers, we learned that they focused their oversight on individual ALJ performance rather than variances among ALJs in hearing office s as we do in our model. 

Finally, our review of the hearing offices with the 10 highest variance scores identified an outlier ALJ who had a significant number of dispositions and OTR decisions with 1 claimant representative. We referred this case to ODAR management for additional review.

     No, they don't explain their model all that well nor do they give the variance score for any office, other than indicating that the Huntington, WV office had high variance scores in past years. The OIG model also identified the Huntington ALJ who was the subject of media attention as being an outlier. Of course, the model was probably tailored so that it would point to Huntington and that particular ALJ.

More Info On Charges Against Retired Police Officers And Fire Fighters

     The Daily Beast gives a little detail on the accusations against the retired New York City police officers and fire fighters who were arrested this week on charges of defrauding the Social Security Administration. 

     I keep wondering why the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York isn't bringing federal charges in these cases. All these charges have been brought in state court. That's very odd. The U.S. Attorney must have declined to bring charges. How strong are these cases? Will they end up being plea bargained to misdemeanors?

102 To Be Arrested In Fraud Investigation

     The Wall Street Journal is reporting that arrests have begun of 102 people who are alleged to have engaged in fraud to obtain Social Security disability benefits. According to the article, those who have been or will be arrested include former New York city fire fighters and police officers. Also, one lawyer, one disability consultant, and two "recruiters" have been or will be arrested.
     Update: A New York Times article has more information on the arrests. Apparently, Facebook pages and other online postings are a major part of the evidence against those being arrested. The attorney who is being charged is Raymond Lavallee, who is 83 years old. Some of the charges being filed are federal charges and some are state charges.
     Further Update: The New York Times has posted the indictment in the case. Somebody will have to explain this to me. The defendants are charged with defrauding Social Security but the indictments were under New York state law and the charges are to be heard by a New York state court. I've never heard of this being done.

Vallas Named to Forbes "30 Under 30" List

     Forbes Magazine has included Rebecca Vallas, the Deputy Director of Government Affairs for the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR), in its "30 Under 30" list of the brightest stars under the age of 30 in 15 different fields.

Good News On Disability Trust Fund

     For a few months I have been saying that things are looking up for the Social Security's Disability Insurance Trust Fund, that it won't be running out of money in 2016. It will be several months before the Trustees' report comes out but the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has now issued its projection that the Disability Trust Fund will have enough money until 2017. 

     Big deal, you say, that's just one year. It's still running out of money. However, in political terms the difference between 2016 and 2017 is significant. There's a long way to go until 2017 but Democratic control of the White House, House of Representatives and Senate is a realistic possibility in 2017.

     The Disability Trust Fund projections may keep getting better as the economy improves and it becomes more obvious that we've already passed the peak of baby boomer disability claims. The gap between the Disability Trust Fund running out of money in 2017 and never running out of money isn't all that great. The Trustees' optimistic projection is that the Disability Trust Fund never runs out of money. Events are moving the Disability Trust Fund in that direction. The Disability Trust Fund exhaustion date may keep moving into the future. Even if it is temporarily exhausted, the gap keeps narrowing. Solving the temporary problem of Disability Trust Fund exhaustion by allowing borrowing between Social Security's trust funds becomes a more likely solution.

Does This Explain Some Of The Increase In Disability Claims?

     The abstract of a study by Philip Armour of Cornell University:

This paper uses survey data matched to administrative records to measure the effect on Disability Insurance [DI] application behavior of a natural experiment in the provision of Social Security benefit information. I find that receipt of the Social Security Statement [Personal Earnings and Benefit Estimate Statement or PEBES], a document gradually introduced in the 1990s which contained personalized information on DI insurance-status and potential benefit, had a positive, substantial, and statistically significant effect on DI application rates of the Health and Retirement Study sample. This increased likelihood of application by 0.84 of a percentage point per two-year period, which is a 62% increase over the base rate. This overall effect was driven by a large increase in the rate of application among those reporting a work-limiting condition and who were previously not employed. The non-work-limited population experienced a small decrease in their DI application rates, suggesting that provision of the Statement increased self-sorting efficiency among potential applicants. Furthermore, my analysis shows no evidence of applicants merely "shifting forward" their DI application after Statement receipt; instead, the estimated increase appears to be new applicants. In the absence of these new applicants, the 32% growth rate of the per-capita DI rolls from 1995-2004 would have been approximately 25%. These results provide a novel explanation for a large portion of the marked rise in DI rolls since the 1990s as well as indicate the importance of the information environment in social program application decisions more broadly.