What Were They Thinking?

     I can't get over the fact that at a time when there are frequently lines of people waiting to be served at Social Security field offices and many people who try to call the agency end up hanging up in frustration because they have been on hold for so long that the Social Security Administration thought it appropriate to spend good money on a study to answer the burning question, "Can you tell how disabled someone is just by looking at how frequently they're treated at a hospital?"

     Honestly, someone ought to be fired over this. Perhaps everyone at Social Security central offices ought to be required to spend some time working on their agency's front line. 

How I Stay Sane -- Countdown To 2018 Congressional Elections

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Warning: Beltway Bandits At Work!

     From a press release:

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine examines to what extent and in which ways health care utilization—such as in-patient hospitalizations, emergency department use, and hospital readmission—reflects disease severity, disability, and ability to perform gainful activity. The committee that conducted the study was unable to find an association between health care utilization and disease severity as it relates to the Social Security Administration's (SSA) determination of severe impairment—an impairment or combination of impairments severe enough to prevent a person from performing any gainful activity regardless of age, education, or work experience. 

     The Social Security Administration paid these beltway bandits to tell us that there's no direct relationship between the number of hospital visits and the degree of disability! Anybody involved with disability determination could have told you that for free. I have clients with 300 page files who are obvious allowances. I have other clients with 2,000+ page files who have weak cases. Disability determination isn't about counting the number of pages of medical records any more than counting the number of hospital visits. The idea that there would be such a simplistic relationship is absurd on its face.

     There's a real beltway bandit touch to this report. Even though the Social Security Administration paid for this worthless study, the National Academies wants $50 for a copy of the report. 

     By the way, if you did pony up the $50, I will bet you that there will be one unambiguous recommendation in the report -- more research. As I've said before, when someone goes to work for a beltway bandit, they must be told on their very first day of work, whenever you write a report, no matter what else it says, it must always give a firm recommendation for more research.

Does It Even Matter?

     From a press release:

House Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Sam Johnson (R-TX) announced today that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing entitled “Lacking a Leader: Challenges Facing the SSA After Over 5 Years of Acting Commissioners” on Wednesday, March 7, 2018 in 1100 Longworth House Office Building, beginning at 10:00 AM. The hearing will focus on the need for a Senate-confirmed Commissioner to lead the Social Security Administration (SSA), the challenges and limitations the SSA faces when it is led by an Acting Commissioner, and the legal framework for filling a vacancy. ...

The Social Security Administration has been without a Senate-confirmed Commissioner for more than five years since Commissioner Michael Astrue’s term expired on January 19, 2013. The current Acting Commissioner, Nancy Berryhill, has served in that role since January 20, 2017. The current six-year term for a Senate-confirmed Commissioner expires on January 19, 2019.

Are We Sure That Online Filing Is A Good Thing?

     From the Detroit Free Press:

Tim Sagert has been enduring the pain of a double-whammy of identity theft.

First, a crook used his stolen ID to claim Social Security benefits last spring. Then this tax season, Sagert was hit with an SSA-1099 tax form for reporting the income paid to the crook.  ...

The Equifax data breach, first disclosed in September — which some dub as the most destructive data breach recorded —  compromised the personal information of nearly 146 million consumers, including some Social Security data. 

Many consumers wondered  whether someone would open a credit card in their name or file a fake tax return to generate a fraudulent refund using their stolen Social Security numbers.

Few imagined that hackers would try to make bogus claims for Social Security benefits.

But consumers who are in their 60s who have not claimed benefits yet could be at risk for headaches involving fraudulent Social Security retirement claims. ...

Social Security after full retirement age is eligible for up to six months of retroactive benefits, payable in a lump sum. If you accept that lump sum, your monthly benefit is smaller.

For the cyber crooks, the payout is huge if they  use the ID of someone in that age range who isn't already collecting benefits. ...

     I'm going to take a guess that the Social Security Administration would prefer that this not be reported. They wouldn't want their vulnerability to be better known.

Waiting In Albany

     The Albany Times Union has an editorial calling for increased administrative funding for the Social Security Administration. The best thing about it is their awesome illustration.

President's 2019 Budget Would Devastate The Social Security Administration -- If It Were Passed But It Won't Be

     Before I give a excerpt from this Washington Post article, let me make it clear that the President's 2019 budget is of little consequence. The recently passed budget deal will allow Social Security to end up with considerably more money. However, the President's budget does tell us something about this Administration's priorities and adequately funding the Social Security Administration isn't one of them.

For the elderly and disabled who complain about poor Social Security assistance now, these might be the good old days.

President Trump’s proposed fiscal 2019 Social Security Administration (SSA) budget would cut staffing, a recipe for long waits in agency offices and on the telephone ...

Declining service is nothing new, but under Trump, there would be fewer federal employees to deal with an increasing number of people of retirement age. His budget request calls for almost 1,000 fewer full-time-equivalent work years in 2019 than this year. ...

The advocacy group, National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, provides these stats to illustrate the problem: About 10,000 baby boomers hit retirement age every day. The increase in workloads coupled with a decrease in staffing led to a 627-day wait for disability applicants’ hearings in 2017. The three-minute telephone wait that callers had for SSA’s 800 number in 2010 was six times longer last year. Despite SSA attempts to direct traffic to its website, there were 2 million more field office visits in 2016 than 2015. “More than 16,000 visitors were forced to wait more than hour for service each day in August 2017,” the committee said. ...

Sue Bird, 66, of Wellington, Nev., told of driving 80 miles to a Social Security office in Reno. When she arrived for a 10 a.m. appointment, she estimated 20 to 30 people were standing outside, waiting to get in. Once she got in, she saw almost 150 waiting inside.
“The room was packed with people,” she said by telephone. “I was shocked.” ...

Lucia Oral Argument Set For April 23

     The Lucia case on the constitutionality of the appointments of Administrative Law Judges has been set for oral argument before the Supreme Court on April 23.