Posted on 04/19/2013 3:56:51 PM PDT by Libloather
WASHINGTON (AP) - Social Security's disability program is overwhelmed by so many claims that judges sometimes award benefits they might otherwise deny just to keep up with the flow of cases, according to a lawsuit filed by the judges themselves.
The Social Security Administration says the agency's administrative law judges should decide 500 to 700 disability cases a year. The agency calls the standard a productivity goal, but the lawsuit claims it is an illegal quota that requires judges to decide an average of more than two cases per workday.
"When the goals are too high, the easy way out is to pay the case," said Randall Frye, president of the Association of Administrative Law Judges and a judge in Charlotte, N.C. "Paying the case is a decision that might be three pages long. When you deny benefits, it's usually a 15- or 20-page denial that takes a lot more time and effort."
The lawsuit raises serious questions about the integrity of the disability hearing process by the very people in charge of running it. It comes as the disability program faces serious financial problems.
The disability program's trust fund will run out of money in 2016, according to projections by Social Security's trustees.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.msn.com ...
Those Amish have found that Disabilitee is a most wonderful thing.
Can we dissolve Social Security yet?
Stunning statistics showing the increase in claims and benefits over the past decades.
Attorneys’ ads to get these payments are the scandal.
http://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/dibGraphs.html
It is an untrained employee of the gooberment agency against which a claim is made.
They are not "judges" in any sense of the word.
They’ve been dumping people into SSI as fast as they can to get them off the unemployment rolls, trying to create the illusion of falling unemployment and economic recovery.
Can you say,"Cloward-Piven?"
I have always been amused by the surplus of handicapped parking at places like Walmart. My comment is that if every handicap space were filled you couldn’t move in the store without bumping into a wheelchair or a walker.
If that many people are truly disabled, then entire parking lots should be made into handicap spaces.
The trouble with the disability status, as I understand it, is that for one to be removed, they have to demonstrate an improvement in the disability which caused their impairment. That’s a tall order.
And yet Britain got half its cases off the rolls by merely threatening to conduct case reviews.
I know what they are because I am friends with several of them. The Social Security administrative law judges are all lawyers who have passed the bar examination in at least one state and completed a a really grueling process, akin to getting another law degree, and then a competitive examination, to qualify as an ALJ. Perhaps you are thinking of some other type of functionary.
They better not! At least not until I get back the thousands and thousands of dollars I paid into it all my working life.
If they keep it open more people will pay into it and want to keep it open until they "get their money back" -- but the show has to stop something, right?
Sure. When I'm dead and gone :)
It is not my responsibility to manage the funds of Social Security. I pay taxes every year to the Federal Government so they can do that. If they choose to not do that or do it incompetently, that is not my fault nor problem.
Pardon my hard core response, but I'm pretty sick and tired of being treated like some kind of criminal just because I demand to get back the bucks I paid in.
I agree some long term changes must be made. The Federal Government can do that any time they choose. It's more a matter, IMHO, of them not having to cojones to do it. The politicos are scared to death they might lose their comfy, almost for life jobs.
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