There were a lot of rumors swirling around (including in the New York Times and the Hill) about some truly terrible proposals for Disability Insurance in the proposed budget deal being negotiated now. I don’t know what the final word will be, but I link here the PDF of what I believe to be the bill introduced at 11:30PM Monday night (26th) by the Republican leadership as the substance of the proposed budget deal. I thought I’d put a rough translation into plain English of what I see in there – I used to draft Social Security and SSDI legislation myself when I worked on the Hill in the 1980’s so I hope I can give an explanation that will help reassure people. Caveat – this is not the last word, I may have some things wrong, and things will undoubtedly change. But the worst stuff that people are upset about don’t seem to be in this bill, at any rate.
Here is the link to the PDF – http://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20151026/BILLS-114hr-PIH-BUDGET.pdf
I have now found the “section by section” description of the bill, which is what the staff prepares for the members to read so they know what they’re discussing, and my quick and dirty description which follows is pretty much correct. Here’s the PDF of that document. http://docs.house.gov/meetings/RU/RU00/CPRT-114-RU00-D001.pdf
My sources are saying that the $168 billion in savings figure seems to be something the Republicans are circulating to exaggerate the effects of the proposal, and is apparently the total over decades, possibly over 75 years. The savings over 10 years seems to be about $5 billion,which sounds like a lot but given the size of the program is not really that much.
What the proposed DI legislation calls for, as I read the discussion draft which is as of 11:30 PM Monday night Oct. 26th.
Section 811 – Expansion of Cooperative Disability Investigations Units – requires SSA to expand arrangements to work with local authorities to investigate I presume disability fraud.
Section 812 – excludes evidence, in DI determinations, from anyone or any entity previously convicted of Medicare or Medicaid fraud (I think that’s the main thrust, although it might be broader than that)
Section 813 – beefs up penalties for Social Security fraud generally, and suspends or terminates benefits for anyone penalized for fraudulently concealing work activity.
Section 814 – electronic communications – inconsequential
Section 815 – changes in administrative funding for redeterminations of eligibility under SSI – doesn’t affect benefit amounts as far as I can see.
Subtitle B – titled Promoting opportunity for Disability beneficiaries
Section 821 and 822 – reauthorization of existing program of DI demonstration projects designed to help DI beneficiaries return to work if they are able
Section 823 – new demo project authority to allow partial monthly payments for DI beneficiaries participating in the project and returning to work – essentially, offsetting their benefits $1 for every $2 earned, but not affecting their fundamental entitlement to benefits so that they can return to full benefit payments if the work effort cannot be sustained. [This kind of thing has been talked about for decades, as a way to encourage people to try to work without endangering their benefit eligibility.] This is demonstration project authority only – I don’t see any requirement that any beneficiary participate in such projects.
824 – Administrative changes in payroll data to get more information on whether DI beneficiaries are working for pay.
832 – Requirement for medical review – no determination of disability can be made until SSA has made reasonable effort to ensure a qualified psychiatrist or psychologist, for mental impairments, and qualified physician for physical impairment, has completed the medical portion of the case review and functional capacity assessment.
There is nothing particularly earth shattering in here. The best news for DI beneficiaries is that in other sections of the bill, they are authorizing the transfer of funds from the OASI trust fund to the DI trust fund to make up the shortfall and prevent any cuts in current benefits.
This seems like very good news indeed:
I hope you don’t mind if I use this post to discuss Medicare and Social Security “reform”.
Here is what Jeb! says about Medicare and Social Security:
Vouchers. And if the coverage you choose is not right for you, then “die but die quickly, please”. The please is added because he wants the olds to realize he is a nice young man and please vote for him.
On Social Security:
Translation from GOP-ese to human:
First, I will set up something for businesses that we can then use as an example that we don’t need a Social Security trust fund … just get a Starter 401k and then hope your boss does not stop funding it or that he goes out of business or gets some really crappy financial advice.
Second, you need to work longer because I can work longer (ignore that I took off for a few years in between political jobs and earned most of my money
sitting on corporate boardshaving my name on the letterhead of corporate boards). Suck it up and work ’til you’re 70, granny!!More on the budget from HuffPo:
The pay fors?
I don’t understand that last part … maybe Geordie can explain it to me.
Republicans appear to hate this more than Democrats.
No ExIm and no highway bill but the highway bill can probably pass on its own because big bucks road builders will be leaning on their members.
The doctor thing is something the Republicans believe will make it harder for DI applicants to get benefits – I guess the thinking is a doctor is tougher to “fool” than disability staff. I think that’s nonsense, myself, but maybe – the bottom line here is Republicans hate DI even more than the retirement portion of Social Security because they don’t believe hardly anyone is really so disabled that they can’t work. So they as a party view the entire program as a boondoggle made up of beneficiaries who are faking their disability and compliant administrators who are letting them. This is nonsense, of course – there undoubtedly is SOME fraud, but when your baseline is, as the Repugs is, “snap out of it and get back to work, you lazy faker”, you see fraud everywhere. And I think the estimates show that – $4-5B over 10 years in a big program like SSDI is not a huge amount, really and who knows if even that will materialize. For the budget bill, all that matters is the estimate.
Hey, we can get optimistic and hope that if a DI application has to be approved by a doctor first they’ll quit automatically denying them. Right? Right? sigh.
Ha! So the Republicans think they have a gotcha because their Fox talking points tell them that doctors will root out all that fraud? Sad for them to have thier heads so firmly up their nether regions but good for us because we can nod and say “yes, let’s have the doctors make this final determination.” And of course there is fraud and there will always be fraud. The decision we make as a compassionate society is that helping the 95-99% who truly need help is worth the risk that someone who does not need the help will game the system.
here’s a very good article by Michael Hiltzik in the LA Times – he’s an extremely reliable reporter on Social Security issues.
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-social-security-medicare-20151027-column.html
Thanks Geordie……my eyes glaze over easily when I try to read and understand these issues, but this helps me be better informed. I appreciate it!
Thanks, Geordie and Jan. Don’t understand much of any of it except that the Rethugs hate Social Security and simply want to push all of us old people right off a cliff. I dislike the word “entitlement.” We paid for those programs—put money into them all our working lives.
May karma deal with them as they deserve.
I prefer “earned benefits”. I have literally paid my dues for the past 45 years and those benefits are due to me. If I use my health insurance to see my doctor, is that an “entitlement” or a benefit of having paid my policy premium? Words matter.
Based on the Twittering I saw yesterday, there are plenty of folks willing to believe that President Obama and Congressional Democrats pushed granny (and her disabled grandson) off the cliff. But it is the same ones who have been claiming, since 2011, that the President has been working on a “grand bargain” that goes against every Democratic Party principle. I have no patience for them because they were wrong then and they are wrong now. He never did and he never will bargain away important protections that our most vulnerable citizens need.
In this budget bill, I see Republicans caving on the sequester and the debt ceiling and failing to block funding for Planned Parenthood, something that Erick Son of Erick said should result in the “dissolution of the Republican Party”. Good!! Start now and save us the pain of the long election contest.
The ExIm reauthorization passed as a separate bill on a bipartisan vote but Mitch McConnell said he would not let the Senate vote on it, presumably because it did not go through normal channels (it used a discharge petition to get to the floor because Boehner would not release it). The House also voted to fund highway maintenance until November 20th so the highway bill will be the first piece of legislature to test Paul Ryan’s ability to keep the House from festooning must-pass legislation with gifts for the right wing, creating a bill that President Obama will veto.
Geordie – So glad you posted this here – and Jan thank you for the discussion. I am very protective about my teeny SS check – and my husband was on SS D for 3 years – while he couldn’t work. He was thankfully able to go back – but I feel for those folks who without it – couldn’t survive.
Its important to get information we can understand.
People’s “teeny SS check” can be the difference between making ends meet and coming up short for food or medicine. It is going to be a challenge for people of our generation to find affordable housing and, eventually, end of life care because there are so many of us and the Republicans have been robbing the various old age funds for years to give tax cuts to the wealthiest. We need a Ronald Reagan-Tip O’Neill moment and fix the caps again so that this is not a political football for the next 20 elections. We might have to wait until we have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and take the House back before anything is done.
Here are a couple more articles on the budget deal that the House is expected to vote on today including these news outlets’ take on the SSDI issue we are discussing here.
Al Jazeera: Relief on Capitol Hill after budget deal
NPR: What’s In The Budget Deal: More Spending, Some Savings, A Few Gimmicks