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Government Wants to Keep Your Disability Dollars

It seems everyone is loading up to take aim at the integrity of the Social Security disability program.  Senate investigations into Social Security are nothing new but usually they are held by the Senate Finance Committee.  NOSSCR's Social Security Forum reports in their September 2012 edition that on September 13 2012, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs held a 3 hour hearing on the quality of favorable disability decisions handed down by Administrative Law Judges. 

Here is what disturbs me about this "investigation":
  • The Senate subcommittee "investigated" only favorable decisions.  This reinforces the idea that Social Security's main focus is not making sure that everyone who deserves Social Security disability gets it; the main focus is making sure that nobody gets Social Security disability that isn't supposed to.
  • Rarely, if ever, does a government committee or subcommittee investigate unfavorable decisions--not even judges who deny 90 percent or more of all claims are investigated.
  • The minority report recommended that the government (Social Security) be represented during disability hearings.  Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) stated his support for a government representative (an attorney) at hearings.
If Social Security adopts the idea of placing a government attorney in Social Security disability hearings, it will not only drive up the cost of Social Security, it will fundamentally change the hearing process.  At present the hearings are non-adversarial.  You don't have two opposing attorneys with one arguing that the claimant should get Social Security disability while the other one argues that he should not.  If that changes then the entire procedure will become more complex, more difficult, more costly and more time consuming. 

Social Security disability award rates have already fallen dramatically over the past 12 months.  Apparently, the government has decided that they have not fallen enough.  Judges are being "retrained," pressured, prodded and now "investigated" for giving too many favorable awards to disabled claimants--for whom SSA disability is the only financial lifeline they have left.

If government lawyers are indeed placed in Social Security hearings, you can expect a much more active role of the federal district courts, which have jurisdiction at the next level of appeal after a hearing by an Administrative Law Judge.  If government attorneys direct more unfavorable hearing decisions, attorneys for the claimants will no doubt file more federal court challenges because that is their only recourse.  This will add up to 3 years of additional waiting for the claimant, in addition to the 18 months he/she has already waited just to get a hearing.

 Apparently, there are those in government who believe that administrative law judges with bleeding hearts are giving away Social Security awards wholesale.  They may be, but I'd like to meet one of them.  I haven't seen one yet!

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