51 Senators Open To Cutting Social Security

     From The Hill:

Senators on Tuesday blocked an amendment from Senate Democrats aimed at protecting Social Security.  

Senators voted 51-48 on a procedural motion, after Democrats tried to override the decision of Sen. Mike Enzi's (R-Wyo.), the chairman of the Budget Committee, to block the amendment.  

The amendment would have required any proposal that cuts benefits or raises the Social Security retirement age meet a “point of order” requiring a supermajority of 60 votes for passage. 

But, Enzi blocked the amendment, saying it was not "germane" to the budget.

Online Appeals System Not Working

     Last week Social Security started up a new system for filing online appeals. The new system allows users to upload documents along with an appeal. This week I'm hearing many reports of difficulty filing appeals online, regardless of whether a document is uploaded at the same time. It's become just about impossible to file an appeal online. I can't say that the current problem is related to the new system but that seems likely.

     I'm sure that someone is working on the problem but it would be nice if the agency would communicate better on technical problems like this. Requiring that attorneys who represent claimants before the agency file appeals online at a time when the agency has no workable system for filing appeals online could cause some frustration.

How Many Times Do I Have To Tell You?

     I'm wondering how widespread this is. A Social Security disability claimant who has requested a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge is asked whether he or she objects to a video hearing. The claimant objects. Later, the hearing office ignores the claimant's wishes and attempts to schedule a video hearing anyway -- unless the claimant objects a second time. Anybody else seeing this?

An Interesting 4th Circuit Opinion

     The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down an interesting opinion last week in the case of Mascio v. Colvin. Here are a few excerpts:

Here, the ALJ has determined what functions he believes Mascio can perform, but his opinion is sorely lacking in the analysis needed for us to review meaningfully those conclusions. In particular, although the ALJ concluded that Mascio can perform certain functions, he said nothing about Mascio’s ability to perform them for a full workday. ... 

[W]e agree with other circuits that an ALJ does not account “for a claimant’s limitations in concentration, persistence, and pace by restricting the hypothetical question to simple, routine tasks or unskilled work.” ...

Mascio’s argument stems from the ALJ’s use of the following language in his opinion:

After careful consideration of the evidence, the undersigned finds that the claimant’s medically determinable impairments could reasonably be expected to cause the alleged symptoms; however, the claimant’s statements concerning the intensity, persistence and limiting effects of these symptoms are not credible to the extent they are inconsistent with the above residual functional capacity assessment. 

We agree with the Seventh Circuit that this boilerplate “gets things backwards” by implying “that ability to work is determined first and is then used to determine the claimant’s credibility.” ...

[A] claimant’s pain and residual functional capacity are not separate assessments to be compared with each other. Rather, an ALJ is required to consider a claimant’s pain as part of his analysis of residual functional capacity.

21 Month Sentence For Former Social Security Employee

     From the Dallas Morning News:

A former Social Security Administration employee was sentenced Friday to 21 months in federal prison for accessing the agency’s electronic databases to steal government money, the U.S. attorney’s office said. 

Carwin Shaw, 33, of Arlington, was also ordered to pay $78,165 in restitution for his role in the scheme.  ... 

He also caused unauthorized payments to be issued and to have duplicate payments issued for his conspirators. Shaw had more checks sent to his accomplices by reporting that their initial checks were lost or stolen. He then split the money with them, authorities said.

White House Criticizes GOP Effort To Force Social Security Showdown

     From TPM:

A top adviser to President Barack Obama on Friday slammed a House Republican maneuver aimed at forcing a showdown on Social Security as early as next year, signaling that it won't fly with the White House.

"The House provision was un-constructive and at odds with how this issue has been addressed time and time again in a bipartisan manner," Brian Deese, senior advisor to the president, told reporters at a breakfast downtown hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. "It is just not tenable to walk away from what has been a very clear bipartisan approach to addressing the [disability fund] issue." ...

Deese said the president would welcome a conversation about Social Security but said the "right way to address this issue" is what Obama's budget released in February proposed: a "clean" reallocation to shore up the disability fund, something congressional Democrats also support.

ALJ Sues Over Alleged Discrimination

   From the Portland (Maine) Press Herald:

A judge who rules on disability cases for the Social Security Administration has sued the federal agency, accusing her supervisors of age and gender discrimination and retaliating against her for filing complaints about her treatment.

Administrative Law Judge Katherine Morgan, one of seven judges in the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review in Portland, said in the lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Portland that she was targeted by the office’s chief judge because of her age. She is 71.

Morgan, who has been a judge since 1994, filed a written complaint to her immediate supervisor, Chief Judge Guy Fletcher, after she was told on Dec. 11, 2013, that she was being targeted in an investigation by the Social Security Administration for her performance. The investigation focused on Morgan’s high production rate in deciding cases, for approving a high number of appeals and for attendance issues, according to the lawsuit.

“Chief Judge Fletcher repeatedly falsely accused Judge Morgan of time and attendance violations for documenting her time and attendance in exactly the same manner as the other judges, who were not accused,” the lawsuit says. ...

Morgan approved more appeals than any other judge in the Portland office. She approved 65 percent of disability claim appeals, dismissed 20 percent and denied 15 percent. She decided 148 cases from last Oct. 1 to March 11. ...

Empty Threats

     In the narrative explanation of its budget proposal, the House Budget Committee says that "There should be no raiding of the Social Security retirement program to bailout another, currently unsustainable program." The "unsustainable program" it's talking about is Social Security disability which has its own Disability Trust Fund separate from the Retirement and Survivors Trust Fund. Since the most recent projection is that there is a long term 20% shortfall in the Disability Trust Fund, they must be planning to pass a 20% cut in Disability Insurance Benefits since that's what will happen absent some legislation. If they actually mean what they say, their message is "You must agree to our plan to cut Social Security disability by 20% or Social Security disability will be cut by 20%." How many members of Congress, Democrats or Republicans, would vote for that?

     If you look at the actual budget numbers, the only cut in Social Security projected in the House budget is an unexplained $1 billion a year cut beginning in 2020. If you're cutting Social Security disability by 20%, the reduction in total Social Security benefit payments would be far more than $1 billion a year and it would start in 2017, not 2020.

     Do I have this right -- House Republicans are threatening cuts they couldn't possibly pass and that they don't even intend to propose?