Did They Get Their Money's Worth?

     I don't think I've seen this before. Social Security has posted the amount it spent on consultative medical examinations of disability claimants in Fiscal Year 2018: $353,390,976.61.

Tense Negotiations Over Union Contract

     From Federal News Network:

After more than a year of tense negotiations, the Social Security Administration and the American Federation of Government Employees have finally reached an agreement on a new, six-year contract.

The new collective bargaining agreement, which SSA management and AFGE representatives signed late last week, settles months of disagreements between the two parties and offers both some stability days before the injunction on the president’s May 2018 executive orders was lifted. ...

The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) in September brought AFGE representatives and SSA management together to begin discussing how the two parties would move forward after a June decision from the Federal Service Impasses Panel.

In total, the impasse panel ruled on four provisions for management, six with slight modifications for management, one provision for AFGE and another for the union with slight modifications. ...

SSA wanted to allow five days for negotiations with the union. AFGE proposed four weeks, the union said.

Both parties struggled to agree on a bargaining process — specifically how long they could negotiate and what specifically they should negotiate over.

In the end, the union faced a decision: drop all ongoing litigation related to the SSA bargaining agreement, which included two court cases and nine grievances, and negotiate with the agency — or have the impasses panel rule on the remaining articles of the existing AFGE contract. SSA, meanwhile, said it would begin to implement the provisions of the president’s workforce executive orders under the second option. ...

“We had two options available to us. Neither option was particularly good,” Rich Couture, president of AFGE Council 215, which represents employees at SSA’s Office of Hearings and Appeals, said in an interview. “One was a choice between a certain annihilation of representation at SSA, as well as long-held employee rights and benefits and privileges, versus a chance at continued survival.” ...

The new agreement gives a bank of 125,000 hours of official time — half of the official time bank AFGE representatives had under the previous contract but 75,000 more hours than what the impasses panel granted in its recent decision. ...

The agreement allows 20 union representatives to use no more than 840 hours of official time a year, meaning those employees could spend about 40% of their time on union activities and the remaining 60% of their time performing the functions for which they were initially hired.

All other union representatives have a limit of 400 hours of official time a year, meaning these employees can spend as much as 19% of their time on union activities. Both of these scenarios give AFGE representatives more official time to work with than what’s described in the president’s executive orders. ...

“The fight is not over, but at least we will have some time and resources to conduct a fight,” AFGE wrote in a summary of its new contract to its members. “There will no longer be any union officials who on 100% official time, 75% official time or even 50% official time. Every union official will be doing production work and we will be feeling, first hand, the same pains and abuses that every other worker feels.” ...

“The commissioner had stated to us that he wanted to have a strong and positive relationship with the unions at SSA, that he wanted to improve working conditions for employees,” Couture said. “Everybody is pretty well aware that SSA’s Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey scores for the last few years are pretty poor. Also, the commissioner wanted to really bring in employee ideas and engage employees in labor in finding ways to address, tackle and solve a lot of SSA’s service delivery issues.” ...

Maintaining the status quo with telework was one of the top priorities for the union, Couture said, but it was one of the few areas where AFGE and SSA couldn’t compromise. ...

The union said it’s concerned SSA component leaders may make their own changes now to existing telework policies. ...

Seizing Social Security Checks To Pay A Hospital Bill

     From a San Antonio television station:

Texas passed laws this year to protect patients from surprise medical bills. But some hospitals can still hit you with huge charges, take money from your paycheck, even confiscate your tax refund. News 4 Trouble Shooter Jaie Avila shows us how it's devastating some local families.

Government-owned hospitals like Brooke Army Medical Center can save your life in an emergency. But they are not part of any insurance network and will not negotiate charges with them. If your insurance doesn't pay the bill in-full the government goes after you.

Back in 2015 Frank Hooker suffered a fall that fractured his skull and caused bleeding in his brain. He was flown to Brooke Army Medical Center for several days of treatment.
“To this day I don't know why the bill wasn't paid because he had really good insurance," said Frank’s daughter Jana Gentry. ...

Frank worked for the City of Devine for decades, but now suffers from Alzheimer's and his wife recently passed away. His daughter Jana says she had no idea there was an unpaid hospital bill for $60,000 until January of this year.

“I got a letter from the Department of the Treasury saying if it wasn't paid in-full they were going to take it out of his social security," Jana recalls.

And that's what they did....

So, we contacted Humana, and BAMC, on Frank's behalf.

Brooke Army Medical Center says after hearing from us they immediately called Jana.

“We provided a copy of the bill to her for her records. As a courtesy to Ms. Gentry, we rebilled her father's insurance carrier," BAMC officials said in an email.

Humana also told us it would look into Frank's bill, adding: "We work diligently and with our members to research and resolve their personal situations."

A few days went by and then, Humana called Frank's daughter Jana with fantastic news: it is covering the hospital bill. ...

We've heard from numerous other families who are struggling to pay off large bills because their insurance companies will not cover charges from BAMC. We've asked to interview someone with Brooke Army Medical Center and the Treasury Department about their collection methods, We hope to bring that to you soon.

      No, I don't know why why Brooke Army Medical Center would have been treating a civilian. (I've actually had a client who had a heart attack while visiting a relative who was an inpatient at a VA hospital. The visitor was admitted to the VA hospital even though he wasn't a vet. That's not the situation here, however. I remember that there was an insurance problem in that case but it was only because the situation came up so seldom that the VA hospital had trouble producing a bill.) I do know that if this had been a hospital owned by anyone other than the federal government that they could not have taken his Social Security check.

Year In Prison For Striking Guard

     From WCPO in Cincinnati:

A Milford man will spend a year in prison for punching a Social Security Administration guard in the face.

U.S. District Judge Michael R. Barrett sentenced 35-year-old Daniel Toops Thursday for the assault that happened on April 11 at the Batavia Social Security office.

According to court documents, Toops was dissatisfied with information he was given after speaking with an official at the social security office. Toops started to leave the building and shouted expletives that included threats to the office and the workers.

Court documents said Toops was then approached by a security guard. There was an altercation, and Toops punched the security guard in the face. ...

Because Of Treasury Transfers The WEP Bill Would Have No Significant Effects Upon Social Security's Trust Funds

     Social Security's Office of Chief Actuary has "scored" the bill introduced by Richard Neal, the Chairman of the House Social Security Subcommittee, that would address the Windfall Offset Provision (WEP) in the Social Security Act that offsets pensions that are based upon wages not covered by the FICA tax. Here's what they found:

... Over the period 2020 through 2029, we estimate the program expenditures for the OASDI program would be increased by $34.3 billion, with the trust funds being fully reimbursed for the added cost on an annual basis with transfers from the General Fund of the Treasury. Over the long-range 75-year period, we estimate that enactment of the Bill would increase OASDI program cost and program income each by 0.02 percent of taxable payroll, thus having no significant effect on the OASDI actuarial balance. ...

Andrew Saul, Art Collector, Patron Of The Arts

     From Artfixdaily:

... New York businessman and philanthropist Andrew M. Saul, who served as a trustee [of the National Gallery of Art] since 2013, stepped down from the board in June to serve as U.S. Commissioner of Social Security. ...

Since 1994, Andrew M. and Denise Saul have been generous donors to the National Gallery of Art, as well as lenders of art to Gallery exhibitions, including Warhol: Headlines (2011), Jasper Johns: An Allegory of Painting, 1955–1965 (2007), Hudson River School Visions: The Landscapes of Sanford Robison Gifford (2004), Arshile Gorky: The Breakthrough Years (1995), and The Drawings of Jasper Johns (1990). The Sauls have been members of the Collectors Committee since 1994 and were donors to The Exhibition Circle in 2008. Andrew M. Saul served as a member of the Gallery's Trustees' Council from 2006 to 2010 and again since 2012. Based in New York City, the couple―listed among the 200 top art collectors in the world by ARTnews magazine in 2009―has amassed a stellar collection of modern and contemporary art and Chinese porcelains. ...

Who's Being Unreasonable -- These Parents Or Social Security?

     From the Los Angeles Times: 

When Azul Ruelas-Brissette was born in the summer of 2018, the baby’s parents were resolute: They did not want “male” or “female” spelled out on their child’s birth certificate.

Jay Brissette and Miguel Ruelas had weighed their decision carefully. They are part of a small but burgeoning cohort of parents who are raising their children in what they call a “gender creative” or “gender expansive” way.

In the couple’s Los Angeles social network alone, several of their friends have chosen not to reveal the gender of their children until the kids are old enough to articulate their identities on their own. ...

Hence Azul’s birth certificate, which shows two dashes where gender is typically indicated. In January 2018, the state of California began issuing birth certificates that mark a gender of female, male, non-binary (those whose gender identities fall outside the categories of male or female) or nothing at all. At least 10 other states allow gender-neutral markers on identity documents.

But Brissette and Ruelas soon learned that federal agencies still adhere to traditional ways of designating gender.

Last November, the couple contacted the Social Security Administration to inquire about registering Azul for a Social Security number. They asked how they should handle the application form, which has just two options in the “sex” category: male and female.

“They went into this whole thing. That we had to pick a gender, that a baby is not a person without a gender,” Brissette said. ...

So they went to the SSA office in downtown L.A. with Azul, who wore a jean jacket and sparkly boots. They filled out the paperwork but left the “sex” category blank, and showed an employee Azul’s birth certificate.

A few minutes later, the employee handed the parents Azul’s Social Security card and a copy of the paperwork. On it, Azul was listed as male. The couple asked how, and why, the agency made that choice for them.

“They told us Azul did have a gender and closed the window,” Brissette said. ...

Problems For Social Security 2100 Act in CBO Projections

     The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has analyzed the effects of the Social Security 2100 Act currently pending before the House Ways and Means Committee. They find that it doesn't quite stabilize the Social Security Trust Funds until the year 2100 as the bill's sponsors have believed. More important, the CBO finds that along the way the bill would cause the Trust Funds to run out of money in 2041. In other words, in the long run if the bill would be adopted would come pretty close to solving the funding problem but there would be a crisis in 2041. This conflicts with the projections of Social Security's Office of Chief Actuary that under the bill the Trust Funds would be fully solvent until at least the year 2100.

     I think the Trust Fund problem- brought up by the CBO could probably be addressed fairly simply by modestly speeding up the tax increase included in the Social Security 2100 Act.

     Another problem, though, is that while the CBO projects that the bill would decrease the overall federal deficit, it would increase on-budget deficits by hundreds of billions of dollars in each decade "because a portion of income taxes paid on Social Security benefits would no longer be allocated to the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund (which is on-budget) and because of the reductions in income tax revenues that would result from the increase in payroll taxes." I don't understand this. My guess is that it's an conceptual problem in the byzantine world of federal budgeting rather than a real world problem.