Hey, Heritage Foundation, No Problem, As Long As You Treat Me Like Other Businesses

     The Heritage Foundation, a right wing advocacy group, has released an Issue Brief calling for an end to withholding of fees for representation of Social Security disability claimants. Here's an excerpt:

... Direct payment for SSDI [Social Security Disability Insurance] representatives establishes a dangerous standard. If increased access or guaranteed payment is sufficient reason for the government to intervene in private transactions, what will prevent all sorts of additional intrusions by the federal government into individuals’ lives? Should the government also provide direct payment to apartment building owners, car dealerships, and colleges?...

The fact that many service providers find it difficult to collect payment from their clients does not mean that the federal government should become the fee collector. State law provides avenues, such as small claims court, for individuals and businesses to obtain their just due.  ...

     I've got no problem with this, Heritage Foundation, as long as you afford me the same "avenue" afforded other businesses in similar situations -- a lien. Take your car to a car dealership to be repaired and the mechanic has a lien -- meaning the mechanic can hold onto your car until you pay for the repairs. Hire a contractor to make repairs on your house and then don't pay the bill -- the contractor has a lien on your house which can be collected with foreclosure if necessary. Finance purchase of a car and stop making payments on the car -- the lender can send out the repo man since the lender has a lien on the car. Hire an attorney to represent you on a personal injury claim after you're injured because some other driver runs a red light and you get a $25,000 settlement -- you can't just take the money and stiff the attorney because the attorney has a lien on the settlement. 

     The Social Security Act forbids most liens on Social Security payments, preventing the lien that an attorney would otherwise have on the back benefits of a client they represent. The law forbidding liens on Social Security benefits has a prominent exception for federal student loans so, yes, a lender associated with a college can get direct payment from Social Security. There's also an exception for debts owed the federal government and for child support. Want to end those exceptions while you're at it, Heritage?

     Liens are an essential part of our legal system and our whole economy. They date back centuries. They're part of our legal heritage. Without liens much of our modern economy would become impossible. While the Heritage agenda often has an anarchist flavor, I doubt that they want to abolish liens.

     If the anti-assignment provision in the Social Security Act had an exception allowing a lien on back Social Security benefits for claimants represented by an attorney, I've got no problem with doing away with the current attorney fee structure at Social Security. 

     How would an attorney lien on back Social Security benefits work? Social Security would issue a joint check for the back benefits made out to the attorney and client. They would each endorse the check and the attorney would be able to take out his or her part and pay the rest to the client. That's the way it works with personal injury settlements. It works that way because the attorney has a lien on the settlement. Why shouldn't attorneys who represent Social Security claimants have the same legal rights as other attorneys and other businesses generally?
     By the way, take a look at the chart that Heritage included in their piece. It looks like the business of representing Social Security claimants hasn't been too profitable lately anyway.
     Also, by the way, it's past time to adjust the cap on fees under the fee agreement process. It's now $6,000 but should be more than $7,000 if adjusted for inflation. Social Security can slowly achieve Heritage's goal of choking off attorney representation of claimants by leaving the cap at $6,000 indefinitely. In fact, it appears that's what's happening. It's time to lift the cap. The law is intended to allow claimants to have access to representation. Implement the law's intention.

Taking Bribes To Speed Up Adjudication Of Social Security Disability Claims

     From the Sun Sentinel, one of many newspapers that hides where it's located:

A former claims representative for the Social Security Administration who took money to speed up the benefits process for selected clients was sentenced to four months in jail followed by four months of house arrest Wednesday.

Maria Sanchez, 50, of Pembroke Pines [apparently a town in Florida], was immediately taken into federal custody. She admitted earlier this year that she received between $13,000 and $15,000 in illegal payments in exchange for moving people to the top of the benefits list.

About every three weeks between 2008 and early 2011, when she decided to stop, Sanchez received a green folder that contained five or six Social Security benefits applications and a white envelope that usually contained $500 in $100 bills. The folders were dropped off at Sanchez's office or during meetings in a Hollywood parking lot, investigators said.

Federal prosecutors said Sanchez took money and gave preferential treatment to speed up the application process for clients of Irma Davidian, 52, of Boca Raton. ...

Davidian was the director of American Advisory Associates, a Boca Raton company that advertised it could help applicants obtain government benefits. Davidian has admitted she recruited clients by running ads in a Russian-language newspaper and they paid her to help them apply for assistance. She is scheduled to be sentenced next month. ...

Though Sanchez did not personally approve the benefits and prosecutors said nobody she helped received any benefit they were not entitled to, Sanchez unfairly moved them to the top of the waiting list and moved other people to the bottom.

     It's hard to tell from the article but it looks like Ms. Sanchez was maintaining her "business" on the side while employed at a Social Security field office.

Hearing Delays Cause Suffering

     From the Associated Press:

Diabetes, arthritis and open-heart surgery have kept Sherice Bennett from working, but she can't afford her medicine and became homeless while waiting for more than two years for a chance to convince a judge that she qualifies for federal disability benefits.

Maria Ruiz also is waiting to appeal her denial; meanwhile, she's been in and out of psychiatric wards since being diagnosed as bipolar, and hasn't been able to buy her meds since August.

Still others die waiting. One man had already been dead for two months this summer before his request for a hearing reached the desk of Miami Judge Thomas Snook. He ultimately approved the claim and the man's spouse will collect his benefits.

 Overburdened administrative judges are working through huge caseloads of these appeals all over America, but Miami has the country's longest average wait for a hearing, at 22 months. And while they wait, many slip into poverty, burdening their families and dragging down the economy. ...

Delays in other cities are nearly as bad: Brooklyn, New York; Spokane, Washington; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Fort Myers, Florida, have 20-month waits. Atlanta, Charlotte, North Carolina, Cincinnati, Baltimore and Chattanooga, Tennessee, are close behind with 19 months. The shortest wait time is eight months in Fort Smith, Arkansas. The national average is about one year and four months, according to the Social Security Administration, and petitioners typically wait another four to five months for a decision after the hearing. ...

The agency's current goal is to reduce the wait to 270 days or less by 2020. A pre-hearing triage program has begun, and the hiring of 400 more judges is planned by 2018.

Poor Education And High Rates Of Disability Go Hand In Hand

Disability Rates Rise With Age

Happy Thanksgiving

List Of Sanctioned Represetatives

     Social Security has recently released a long list of attorneys and claimant representatives who have been barred from practicing before the agency because of misconduct. Note that the list goes back many years. Also note that the list doesn't include the name of Eric Conn.

First Sign Of Re-Recons

     I heard today of a claimant's request for hearing being diverted to an "informal remand" review, also called re-recon. This is an effort to get strong disability claims approved without the long wait for a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge. This has been done in the past to help deal with the hearing backlog. 

     I have no idea how many of these will be done or what the criteria will be. I would caution that Social Security's Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) has been doing Senior Attorney reviews, which are somewhat similar to re-recons, in the last few years but they have amounted to almost nothing because so few reviews have been done and because they have been done under such restricted standards that few claims could be approved. The Senior Attorney reviews done in recent years may have been a waste of staff time. We'll have to see if the agency has gotten past its fears of being accused of "paying down the backlog."