Merry Christmas

Some Christmas Cheer -- No, Seriously

     From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Last week, I wrote about Acworth resident Mary Ann Statler and her devastating, ruinous trek through the Social Security disability process. ...

The column prompted response from people intimately familiar and utterly frustrated by the backlog, including some lawyers who make their living at it.

“The toll is a human toll,” said Jonathan Ginsberg, an Atlanta attorney who devotes a lot of his practice to disability claims. “It’s very, very frustrating.”

The choke point in the process occurs when an applicant appeals a denied claim to an administrative law judge. That process is so backed up that applicants wait an average of 23 months to get a hearing in the agency’s downtown Atlanta office.

To add insult to the injury, Ginsberg said once one of his clients gets a hearing scheduled, the outcome can largely depend on who gets the case. Some judges approve a vast percentage of their cases, while others deny an equally large number. ...

The administrative law judges in the agency’s downtown Atlanta office approve an average of 47 percent of the claims they hear, but that figure hides an incredible deviation among the judges. On the high end, one judge approves 74 percent of claims before him, while at the low end another approves just 19 percent. ...

n fiscal 2010, administrative law judges approved 62 percent of disability claims and denied 25 percent. The rest of the cases were dismissed for various reasons, including from people who abandoned their claims after months or years of delay. By fiscal 2016, approvals had dropped to 46 percent while denials increased to 35 percent. ...

[Marilyn] Zahm [president of the Administrative Law Judge union] said there is definite pressure from the agency to get judges to find against workers....

Zahm said she has offered a streamlined way to process paperwork for cases where a worker’s disability claim is found “fully favorable.” These are non-controversial cases where a judge has already decided in favor of the worker, and there are tens of thousands of these cases, she said.

“I even had someone draft the (decision) templates for them,” she said.
But, so far, there has been no response. ...

     Maybe I just want it to be so but I'm getting the feeling that tectonic plates are shifting. Even Republicans who really wanted to believe that there is vast fraud in the Social Security disability programs now realize that Eric Conn was a bizarre one-off that had nothing to do with what was happening elsewhere. Their hope that they could pour lots of money into fraud investigations and turn up one juicy story after another hasn't panned out. There was a reason that I and others who work on behalf of the disabled were never concerned about more money going to program integrity. We knew that there was nothing of consequence to be found. We were only concerned about the diversion of money from the day to day work of making decisions on disability claims. Now, reporters and others are focusing more and more on the tragic reality of horrible delays and harsh decisions at Social Security. Stories such as the ones we've seen lately in newspapers have a cascade effect. A reporter somewhere else in the country reads the Atlanta Journal-Constitution piece and gets an idea for a story that he or she can write with new quotes from local people. Republicans on the House Social Security Subcommittee are now struggling to come up with a cover story to explain why their inadequate appropriations are the reason why Social Security has such terrible backlogs. I don't think their excuses are going to give them cover for long.

Merry Christmas

Give 'Em Hell, Les!

     In an op ed in the Los Angeles Times Les Gapay (who has an interesting backstory) writes:

In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the great Social Security program. It was designed to give workers an income after retirement.Today, it’s not so great. The tiny Social Security increase that will be bestowed on retirees and the elderly in January is a cruel fraud perpetrated by the government. That's because increases in Medicare Part B and Part D insurance premiums will negate all of the Social Security 2% cost of living increase for many recipients. Instead of staying even, we’ll fall behind.

I just got my annual benefits letter from Social Security. It says I will get $24 a month more next year. However, after the Medicare premium increases, my new Social Security check will be $3.40 a month less than the one I currently get. (The government deducts Medicare premiums from Social Security checks.)

In my case, the Medicare Part B insurance premium, for doctor visits, will go from $109 a month to $133 a month, eating the entire $24 cost of living increase. And my Part D prescription drug Medicare premium will increase to $20.40 a month from $17. For retirees on a fixed, low income, every dollar counts. We can't afford to have less money — even $3.40 a month — coming in from a government program we paid into for 45 years or so. ...

I paid into the system for decades from my wages, and I don’t want these programs cut.

My dwindling Social Security income is only half the problem, of course. My rent will go up on Jan. 1 by $27 a month. Food prices are rising....

Beyond Medicare premiums, the costs in other parts of that safety net keep rising as well. The Medicare Part B annual deductible — what I have to pay before Medicare ponies up — isn’t going up in 2018, but it rose last January to $183, from $166 in 2016, and $147 in 2015. And pray to God I don’t get hospitalized. That’s Medicare Part A, and the deductible will be $1,340 next year, up from $1,316. Most regular folks can't afford either amount. ...

No one in Congress from either party seems to give a damn. ...

Merry Christmas

A Small Sign Of A Vastly Larger Problem

     I thought I'd point out that Donald Trump was inaugurated President eleven months ago today but his official photo is still not hanging in federal offices, like Social Security. This isn't because of some dastardly plot to disrespect our esteemed leader. It's because the Trump White House is so disorganized that it hasn't selected an official portrait photo to distribute to federal offices!

Some Non-Abstract Questions

     Why is the Social Security Administration allowing Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) to hold hearings? It is the official position of the Executive Branch, of which Social Security is a part, that the ALJs lack authority to hold hearings and issue decisions.

     What is Social Security's plan for dealing with a Supreme Court decision holding that ALJs, as presently hired, are unconstitutional? By the way, Social Security, good luck on getting any usable advice on this from the White House or Department of Justice.

     Should attorneys request Appeals Council review and District Court review every time a client is denied by an ALJ, given that it is the position of the Executive Branch that the ALJs lack authority to make decisions, a position that the Supreme Court may possibly uphold? Even if I consider that Executive Branch position nuts, my obligation is to advance my client's interests even if those interests conflict with what I consider to be the best interests of the country.

     The only immediate solution for the problem is to have the President officially appoint each of Social Security's ALJs as has been done for the Securities and Exchange Commission ALJs. That should have already been done for the Social Security ALJs. If this isn't done, there will be a vast cascade of remands should the Supreme Court hold ALJs as presently appointed unconstitutional. Doing it after a Supreme Court decision isn't enough.

Merry Christmas