CONGRESS PRESSURES SOCIAL SECURITY TO DENY MORE CASES

 "Members of Congress take absolutely no responsibility for what is happening to Social Security.  It is easier to blame it on somebody else, including the disabled or dishonest lawyers, or anyone else."

In 2014, administrative law judges, who work for the Social Security Administration, denied 52 percent of disability cases that came before them.  That is the highest denial rate in the history of  the Social Security program which began in 1955.

Congress is clearly to blame.  Congress has repeatedly sent clear messages that it believes the Social Security disability program is out of control, spending too much money and needs to be reigned in.  The political message to Social Security's judges is:  Cut awards, pay out less money!  When told that the Social Security trust fund would become insolvent in 2016 and be unable to pay full disability benefits to millions of Americans, Congress refused to act.  

If you watch or read the transcripts of recent hearings the Congress has held on Social Security disability, you get an unmistakable impression that Congress has no use for the disability program and could care less if it goes broke.  Why do congress members feel that way? Because every view or opinion is based on a set of preconceived "facts" that color the opinion.  Here are some of the views that color the congressional view of Social Security Disability.

• The disability program is ripe with fraud and abuse.*
• The program has become "the new welfare" of the 21st Century.
• Judges and claimants both  often conspire to defraud the system.
• Social Security disability is now being used as "unemployment insurance."
• Fraud is the rule, not the exception, in the Social Security disability program.
• Social Security lawyers are getting rich off of fraudulent disability claims.

The above assumptions are simply inaccurate, over-generalized and mostly totally untrue.  A few isolated cases of fraud have been publicized and made media sensations by organizations like the New York Times, the Washington Post or CBS News.  These incidents have been thoroughly investigated and those responsible have been indicted and sentenced.  However, the Office of the Inspector General has repeatedly stated that these incidents of fraud were isolated and are not happening on an ongoing, regular basis.

As to claimant's representatives (lawyers) getting rich?  The best paid Social Security attorneys in the United States are Bender and Bender of New York.  Bender and Bender recently filed for bankruptcy in federal court.  The maximum fee an attorney can earn from representing a Social Security client is set, in most cases, at $6,000.  That's the max.  Average fees are much less than that.  That is the low end of the pay scale for any type of legal advocacy.  For example, in a civil case where an attorney sues the insurance company for a motor vehicle accident, there are no set maximums and the typical fee is one-third or more of the money recovered.  This dwarf's the pidly $6,000 maximum for a Social Security representative.  And the fee is paid entirely by the claimant, not by the Government.  In fact, the Government charges a "handling fee" to deduct the fee from the claimant's back pay and send it to the attorney.

Any time someone acts on a set of assumptions that are not factual or downright false, the result will be flawed.  Congress is acting upon false assumptions with regard to Social Security disability and the disabled who paid their FICA taxes in good faith are the ones being hurt.