Doesn't Seem Fair

     From BuzzFeed:

Two legal nonprofit groups filed a class action lawsuit against the Social Security Administration Tuesday for its treatment of married same-sex couples after the Supreme Court struck down a federal law that prevented the federal government from recognizing their marriages. 

For almost a year after the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional in June 2013, the SSA continued to treat Hugh Held and Orion Masters as unmarried.

Despite Held asking the local Social Security branch office in Los Angeles whether the court’s ruling, in light of his 2008 marriage to Masters, would mean a change to his Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits, he continued to receive his benefits of $877.40 a month.

Then, in June 2014, Held’s benefit was reduced to $308.10 a month on account of his marriage to Masters.

Held and Masters were fine with that change, but they are not OK with the $6,205 bill that the Social Security Administration (SSA) also sent Held, the amount, SSA asserts, that Held was overpaid in benefits since the Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Windsor. ...

Hiltzik On 60 Minutes Piece

     Michael Hiltzik didn't think much of the 60 Minutes piece on the problems with Social Security's Death Master File (DMF). Here are a few excerpts from his column:

[60 Minutes] implied that it had turned up this scandal through its own digging, so it didn't mention that errors in the DMF is a hardy journalistic perennial, like reports on how bad the traffic is in your town or sweeps-week TV pieces on gourmet restaurants flunking sanitary inspections. ...

Most news reports on the DMF errors have a few things in common. They all seem to reflect the assumption that keeping an error-free master death list should be easy. And they blame the Social Security Administration for the flaws. ...

The biggest hole in the "60 Minutes" segment was the lack of suggestions about what to do about what is plainly an enormous headache for people wrongly listed as deceased. But it's not rocket science. To begin with, although the DMF is public, Congress should outlaw its use by any financial institution to take action against an account holder without verifying the information independently. ...

The news program also might have asked what it would cost the Social Security Administration to make the Death Master File rock-solid and error-free, and whether Congress would be willing to appropriate the money. Expecting the agency to maintain a perfect list, when the roll was never designed to become the raw material for bank and credit decisions, is ridiculous--especially in an era when Congressional cuts to the agency's administrative budget has forced it to close field offices that service tens of millions of benefit enrollees. ...

Should Social Security continue to do its most important job of serving its beneficiaries, or should it respond to blather from Congress and inflated headlines from "60 Minutes"?

Social Security Offices To Be Open Four More Hours Per Week

     From a Social Security press release:

Social Security announces as a result of Congress’ approval of the fiscal year 2015 budget, the agency will expand its hours nationwide and offices will be open to the public for an additional hour on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, effective March 16, 2015.  A field office that is usually open from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. will remain open until 4:00 p.m.  Offices will continue to close to the public at noon every Wednesday so employees have time to complete current work and reduce backlogs.

“This expansion of office hours reaffirms our commitment to providing the people we serve the option of top-notch, face-to-face assistance in field offices even as we work to expand online services for those who prefer that flexibility,” said Carolyn W. Colvin, Acting Commissioner of Social Security.  “The public expects and deserves world-class customer service and thanks to approved funding, I am pleased we will continue our tradition of exceptional service.”

In recent years, Social Security reduced public office hours due to congressional budget cuts, growing backlogs and staffing losses.  The agency began recovery in fiscal year 2014 by replacing some field office staffing losses and providing overtime support to process critical work.  With the commitment of resources in fiscal year 2015, the agency is able to restore some service hours to the public.

New Ruling On Interstitial Cystitis

 A new Social Security Ruling on the evaluation of interstitial cystitis in disability claims will appear in the Federal Register tomorrow but you can read it today. The Ruling replaces SSR 02-2p.

Hope This Works

     Maybe my complaint about Social Security's ineffective process for notifying the public of office closings did some good. Here's an e-mail I received from the agency:

You are subscribed to the Social Security Administration’s Office Closings and Emergency Information page. 

Now you can sign up to receive email or text messages when Social Security offices in your state or territory close down or open late because of severe weather or emergencies. 

To sign up for your state or territory, go to www.socialsecurity.gov/agency/emergency and click on this button:

 

Upload Documents When Filing Appeals

     Social Security says you can now upload supporting documents when filing an appeal.

60 Minutes Report On Death Master File Problems

Blame CBS for the formatting problems here. Here's a link to watch it properly formatted.

Well, You Looked Dead To Me

     Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has issued a report on Social Security's efforts to deal with situations in which the agency receives some information suggesting the possibility that a beneficiary has died but not definitive proof of death. Two of the situations identified by OIG were mail returned as undeliverable or a beneficiary who cannot be located. Not surprisingly, there are often overpayments in these cases when it turned out that the beneficiary had died. The agency often failed to recoup the money in these cases. OIG identified 58 cases involving about $1 million where that happened.

     This is one of those reports where you wonder whether OIG considers the collateral costs of what it is recommending. Sometimes people move and fail to leave a forwarding address. Sometimes the Post Office fails to properly implement a forwarding address. Sometimes a John Smith is reported to have died but the agency needs the death certificate to make sure it doesn't cut off benefits to the wrong John Smith. Sometimes people just disappear. Sometimes they reappear.  An overly aggressive approach to these types of cases could  save money but it could also cause benefit terminations for a lot of people who aren't dead. That's an enormous hassle for those whose benefits are wrongly terminated. Social Security doesn't have an army of employees with time on their hands to quickly investigate and sort out these cases.