New animal research in the February 18 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience may indicate how certain diseases make people feel so tired and listless. Although the brain is usually isolated from the immune system, the study suggests that certain behavioral changes suffered by those with chronic inflammatory diseases are caused by the infiltration of immune cells into the brain. The findings suggest possible new treatment avenues to improve patients’ quality of life.
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The March 2, 2009 issue of The Nation offers a new take on looting the Social Security system. We thought we’d seen the nadir of ideas with the privatization schemes – that would have been proved a disaster in the past year’s market returns. But now comes a new scheme:

“Governing elites in Washington and Wall Street have devised a fiendishly clever “grand bargain” they want President Obama to embrace in the name of “fiscal responsibility.” The government, they argue, having spent billions on bailing out the banks, can recover its costs by looting the Social Security system. They are also targeting Medicare and Medicaid. The pitch sounds preposterous to millions of ordinary working people anxious about their economic security and worried about their retirement years. But an impressive armada is lined up to push the idea–Washington’s leading think tanks, the prestige media, tax-exempt foundations, skillful propagandists posing as economic experts and a self-righteous billionaire spending his fortune to save the nation from the elderly. These players are promoting a tricky way to whack Social Security benefits, but to do it behind closed doors so the public cannot see what’s happening or figure out which politicians to blame. The essential transaction would amount to misappropriating the trillions in Social Security taxes that workers have paid to finance their retirement benefits. This swindle is portrayed as “fiscal reform.” In fact, it’s the political equivalent of bait-and-switch fraud.

Defending Social Security sounds like yesterday’s issue–the fight people won when they defeated George W. Bush’s attempt to privatize the system in 2005. But the financial establishment has pushed it back on the table, claiming that the current crisis requires “responsible” leaders to take action. Will Obama take the bait? Surely not…” See full story here:

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At long last the Social Security Administration is expanding rather than cuttimng jobs and services. As part of the economic stimilus plan, the Baltimore Sun reports that the agency received a total of $1 billion in the stimulus, with half to go toward the computer project and half for reducing a huge backlog in processing disability claims.

Using a hefty down payment from the newly signed economic stimulus law, the Social Security Administration has embarked on a $750 million project to replace its outmoded National Computer Center and is searching for land within 40 miles of Baltimore.

The injection of funds could result in hiring 5,000 to 6,000 workers in Baltimore and around the country, Michael J. Astrue, the commissioner of the Social Security Administration, said in an interview yesterday. See full story under this link:

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At this time of the year, people who are receiving disability benefits start asking about taxes on their checks. How much, if any, of a Social Security benefit is taxable? It depends on total income and marital status. Generally, if social security benefits were your only income for 2008, your benefits are not taxable and you probably do not need to file a federal income tax return.

If you received income from other sources, your benefits will not be taxed unless your modified adjusted gross income is more than the base amount for your filing status. Your taxable benefits and modified adjusted gross income are figured in a worksheet in the Form 1040A or Form 1040 Instruction booklet. See this informative article at msnbc:

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From Dave Traver’s excellent and informative blog:
It is not unusual for a vocational expert (VE) to testify a thousand times or more at disability hearings at the Social Security Administration. It is also not unusual to find attorneys who have spent their entire careers at those hearings without asking a single VE for the exact basis and methodology that would support or falsify the VE’s testimony. After all of those years and all of those hearings, such an attorney has no way of knowing if the VEs gave honest and accurate answers, or if the testimony was made up out of whole cloth.

The Social Security Administration uses a sequential evaluation process to evaluate disability claims. At step five of the sequential evaluation process, the SSA often uses vocational experts. When the vocational expert (VE) gets to the part of the testimony about specific jobs and especially numbers of jobs at your disability hearing (to prove you or your client not disabled), the VE may start making everything up. This is a sad fact, given that in FY 1999, government payments to VEs totaled $21.6 million to 1,337 VEs.

I suggest you insist on understanding how the VE knows what the VE says he or she knows. Don’t settle for the idea that the allegation of 25-years experience gives the VE an intuitive grasp that there are 12,432 unskilled, one-armed, illiterate, sedentary inspectors in your part of the woods, or nationally. When the VE gives the based upon my experience answer, the VE should be able to back answer up with explanations that support the testimony. In the absence of that foundation, the testimony is simply ipse dixit.

So, when the VE states that her experience tells her x about occupation y, a reasonable line of questioning would be to assume that the testimony is unproven and lacks a foundation. See entire article here.

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Overpayment notices arrive like incoming missiles, shattering the fragile stasis of the lives of disability paymnet recipients. Frequently there are errors in the notices, many caused by Social Secuity itself. A common situation is one where the client has reported income and Social Security has failed to record it. Often a skilled advocate can challenge the amount due, whether any amount is due, and/or create a reasonable payback plan that doesn’t put a client out on the street. Decisions can be appealed – judges often want to settle these complicated cases rather than spend weeks unraveling contradictory notices and book keeping problems.

A recent posting on an HIV list-serve by Hilary Armstrong, Senior Attorney with
AIDS Legal Services at Law Foundation of Silicon Valley notes that
clients who have a 100% Medicare Part D subsidy, POMS GN 02210.030(B)(6) requires SSA to accept a $10 per month repayment plan offer for any overpayment, even if that would not allow full recovery within 36 months: “If a negotiated/requested rate would not permit recovery within 36 months but the debtor has a 100% Medicare Part D subsidy, grant, without financial development, any request that is at least $10.” SSA may apply this POMS section even when the underlying overpayment is significant (i.e. $15,000-50,000), though it does usually require actually printing out the section and highlighting the applicable part for the claims representative. Sometimes SSA will accept $10 per month plans for clients without Medicare who would be financially eligible for a 100% Medicare Part D subsidy (i.e. SSI only clients).

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THe stimulus package that is passing thru Congress this week may have its detractors, but one portion that thrills those of us in the field of Social Security law is a designation of part of the $789.5 billion stimulus package for the Social Security Administration. The agency will receive $1 billion for a new computer facility and to help reduce the processing backlog at the Woodlawn campus, which deals with processing payments and appeals.

The Baltimore Sun reports that the deal worked out this week by House and Senate negotiators gives Social Security the additional funding for “infrastructure improvements and critical agency operations,” according to an official committee report issued today along with the legislation. Of that money, $500 million is to be used to replace the agency’s National Computer Center at Woodlawn, which is now nearly 30 years old. See full story here

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Not too surprising – the one place business is up is at the Social Security office. Today’s Washington Post reports that beleagured workers at the Social Security Administration are “working harder and enjoying it less, while its customers grow ever more frustrated.” A recent Government Accountability Office report details the negative impact of SSA staff cuts, retirements and even more significant: increased filings for benefits. See story here:

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