Appropriations Bill Moves Forward With Many Directives For Social Security

     The House Appropriations Committee has reported out the bill that includes the appropriation for the Social Security Administration's operations. As expected, it includes a $300 million increase for Social Security. This is barely enough to keep up with inflation. The Senate bill is likely to be worse for Social Security.

     As usual, the Committee report on the bill includes a number of directives for the agency, which start at page 228 of the report. This year's bill includes a high number of these directives. Here's a list:

• Prepare report within 60 days on Administrative Law Judge selection;
• Include more information in Beneficiary Verification letters;
• Prepare report on negotiations with employee unions;
• Encourage proper consideration of headache disorders in determination of disability;
• Prepare update for Committee on agency's information technology modernization;
• Brief Committee on mailing paper statements;
• Prepare report on utilization of Social Security programs by persons suffering from muscular dystrophy;
• Prepare report on occupational information system project;
• Prepare proper research designs for all pilot projects and prepare a report on all such pilots;
• Prepare report within 180 days on improving Disability Determination Services process, including addressing the role of the reconsideration stage;
• Stop the proposal to charge fees for replacement Social Security cards;
• Stop pursuing the plan to consider social media postings in determining disability;
• Strongly urges agency to not proceed with plan for mandatory video hearings;
• Provide report within 90 days on strengthening vocational expert program;
• Strongly urges agency to not go forward with proposed regulations that would eliminate inability to communicate in English as factor in determining disability.

     One thing that didn't make this long list is a directive to strongly consider increasing the cap on fees that attorneys and others can charge for representing Social Security claimants.

The "You Were In The Neighhborhood Where A Crime Was Committed So You Must Be Guilty" Standard

     I had heard that there were allegations of Social Security disability fraud in Puerto Rico. Until recently I was under the impression that this just concerned a small number of claimants. There's now a class action lawsuit that's in the process of being filed against Social Security concerning these cases that tells us that this is huge. Here's an excerpt from the class action complaint (note that this link expires on May 20) that will be filed once a motion to consolidate is granted:

... Starting around 2013, SSA invoked §405(u) to reconsider plaintiffs’ final favorable disability determinations. The impetus was the discovery of a fraud scheme in Puerto Rico involving non-attorney representative Samuel Torres Crespo. Torres Crespo allegedly worked with four doctors—José Hernández González, Wildo Vargas, Rafael Miguez Balseiro, and Erica Rivera Castro (together, the “implicated doctors”)—to submit fraudulent medical evidence in support of some applications for Title II benefits. After a lengthy investigation that started in 2009, the government indicted Torres Crespo and the implicated doctors in 2013. The indictments charged the individuals with making false statements or representations to SSA. Ultimately, Torres Crespo, Hernández González, and Vargas pled guilty to making (or participating in a conspiracy to make) false or misleading statements to SSA. Miguez Balseiro and Rivera Castro each pled guilty to a misdemeanor count of inadequate recordkeeping; their charges for making false statements or representations to SSA were dismissed with prejudice.

After the indictments were filed, SSA initiated redetermination proceedings for nearly 7,000 disability beneficiaries, including plaintiffs, whose files included evidence from Torres Crespo and/or one or more of the implicated doctors.

As a result of these redetermination proceedings, plaintiffs and approximately 1,000-1,500 other beneficiaries in Puerto Rico lost their disability benefits. ...

With respect to members of the Exclusion Class, SSA excluded all medical evidence associated with Torres Crespo or the implicated doctors without permitting the affected
beneficiaries any opportunity to dispute SSA’s allegations that the evidence was tainted by fraud.

With respect to members of the Non-Exclusion Class, SSA initiated the redetermination process based on a preliminary suspicion that evidence submitted by Torres Crespo and/or one of the implicated doctors was fraudulent. Later, however, SSA made a formal finding that there was no reason to believe that fraud was involved in the beneficiaries’ applications. ...

     Note the allegation that some of the claimants were caught up in this not because fraudulent evidence was submitted in their cases but merely because they had been represented by someone who submitted fraudulent evidence in other cases. Social Security acknowledged that there was no reason to believe there was fraud in the case of these individuals but still redetermined their cases and cut off their benefits. It's a standard of "you were in the neighborhood where a crime was committed so you must be guilty."

Yeah, They Really Are Sick

     The most recent issue of the Social Security Bulletin, the agency's scholarly journal, contains an article by Jeffrey Hemmeter and Paul S. Davies on Infant Mortality Among Supplemental Security Income Applicants. The bottom line is that child SSI applicants die at a fairly high rate compared to other children.

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You Have To Be Disabled But Not Too Disabled

     From the National Law Review:

An employee who applies for and receives Social Security disability benefits may be judicially estopped from bringing a disability discrimination claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act (the “ADA”) according to a recent Louisiana District Court case. Tanner v. BD LaPlace, LLC. ...

The Court held that Tanner was precluded from bringing an ADA claim because of his sworn testimony provided to the SSA that he was “totally disabled” as of February 10, 2016. Relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Cleveland v. Policy Mgt. Sys. Corp., 526 US 795, 806 (1999), the court here determined that it was Tanner’s responsibility to explain the contradiction, which he failed to do. ...

Social Security's List Of Top 10 Baby Names For 2019

Rank	Male name	Female name
1	Liam	Emma
2	Noah	Olivia
3	William	Ava
4	James	Isabella
5	Oliver	Sophia
6	Benjamin	Charlotte
7	Elijah	Mia
8	Lucas	Amelia
9	Mason	Harper
10	Logan	Evelyn

From Social Security Administration

Delay In Saul Confirmation?

     There was a Senate Finance Committee hearing yesterday on the nomination of David Black to become Deputy Commissioner of Social Security. The opening statement of Senator Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Committee, contained this interesting language:

... This morning, while we consider this nomination for SSA deputy commissioner, I also want to remind the committee that Social Security has not had a confirmed commissioner in place since February 2013. Bottom line, that’s far too long for the top position to go unfilled. Just like any government agency or any private business, SSA runs best when it has strong leadership with a vision for how to improve. In my judgement, the Senate should not confirm a deputy commissioner before confirming the commissioner.

Andrew Saul’s nomination to serve as commissioner has been approved by this committee twice. I hope he’s able to get on the job soon. I also note that, in terms of going forward on the Senate floor, it would be appropriate to take up the nomination of the commissioner before taking up the nomination of the deputy commissioner. ...

     Obviously, Wyden wants Andrew Saul confirmed as Commissioner and he's worried that there will be a delay in that confirmation even though he's not expecting delay in Black's confirmation as Deputy Commissioner. I wonder what's going on. Democrats can't hold up nominations in the Senate very long these days. Republicans changed the rules.

Social Security Scams Escalating

     From the New York Times:

Move over, Internal Revenue Service. Criminals now prefer the Social Security Administration as their cover agency when they try to swindle Americans over the phone.

The I.R.S. has long been a popular choice for telephone scammers, who call pretending to be federal tax representatives to extract money, personal information or both from consumers. 

But federal authorities say they have seen fraudulent calls from Social Security Administration impostors “skyrocket” over the past year, overtaking the fake I.R.S. calls.

“In the shady world of government impostors,” the Federal Trade Commission said in a report in April, “the S.S.A. scam may be the new I.R.S. scam.” ... 

People filed over 76,000 reports about Social Security impostors in the 12 months ending in March, with reported losses of $19 million, according to the F.T.C., which investigates consumer fraud. About 36,000 of the complaints and $6.7 million of the losses were reported in February and March. 

By comparison, the agency said, consumers reported $17 million in losses to the I.R.S. scam at its peak, during the 12 months that ended in September 2016. The data comes from the F.T.C.’s Consumer Sentinel Network database, a pool of millions of consumer complaints. ...

OHO Caseload Analysis Report

       This was obtained by the National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR) and published in their newsletter, which is not available online:

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