Disability-pay seekers face wait

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Disability-pay seekers face wait

Ken Alltucker

The Arizona Republic

May. 20, 2007 12:00 AM

Jim Allsup learned firsthand how difficult it is to navigate the bureaucracy

of the Social Security Administration. After all, he worked there five

years.

Today, the sdale resident owns a company that aims to help people

navigate the long and arduous process of securing Social Security disability

benefits.

The problem is not small.

A total of 6,046 Arizona residents are waiting to have their Social Security

disability claims processed and heard by judges, caseworkers and other

decision-makers in Arizona. There are about 733,000 cases pending nationwide.

Nationally, it takes an average of 483 days from the date a person requests

a hearing to the date the case is decided. And that is just one step of the

process; many applicants must wait more than two years to receive payment. The

problem is difficult because many of those waiting for a decision come from

society's most vulnerable ranks.

Unable to work because of physical or mental disabilities, these people

often scrape by on the generosity of family, friends and others. Others don't

have that luxury.

" The sad part is the human toll, " Allsup said. " People lose their homes,

their automobiles. It is just a terrible situation. "

The federal agency acknowledges the backlog of claims and is trying to

accelerate the process by hiring more administrative law judges to hear cases

faster. Still, federal budget cuts have limited the number of new judges and

support staff the agency has been able to hire. And the process of handling a

claim is complex because of the detailed medical records, work histories and

other paperwork required to decide a case.

Part of the reason the process is so complex is to ensure that people do not

cheat the system or file claims better suited for other programs, such as

workers' compensation.

" We don't have as many judges as we need, " said , a spokeswoman

at Social Security's Richmond, Calif., regional office that oversees

Arizona. " Even with the backlog, we do have processes to attempt to speed

things up. "

Social Security Commissioner J. Astrue will answer questions

Wednesday before the Senate Finance Committee on the disability backlog. The

federal

agency, which now has fewer administrative law judges than it did in 1997,

will seek money to hire more judges to plow through the backlog.

Allsup, who launched his consulting business after a five-year stint with

the federal agency, said the case bottleneck stems from the agency's lack of

resources and inefficient processes. Although his 425-employee company is based

in the St. Louis area, Allsup estimates he spends 75 percent of his time in

sdale, where he works from home.

" The big picture is relatively simple. There is too much work and not enough

staff, " said Allsup, who has testified before Congress on Social Security's

disability program backlog. " The agency needs ... more decision-makers to

decide these cases. They also need to fix the front end of the process,

developing a case file, interviewing people and developing medical evidence. "

Part of the problem, Allsup said, is that people often are overwhelmed by

the sheer volume of paperwork required. Allsup's company seeks to speed the

process by collecting the required paperwork from doctors and employers and

sending the forms to Social Security workers. Allsup also represents people

during hearings before administrative law judges.

Allsup's company collects a fee up to $5,300 - an amount capped by the

federal government - when a person gets his or her claim award. Awards are

typically paid in a lump sum that includes back pay for legitimate claims

followed

by monthly payments.

A sdale legal secretary who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in

2001 continued to work for a couple of years with the illness. She filed a

disability claim in August 2003 after leaving her job because she no longer

could

lift her arms to type.

Her initial claim was denied within nine months, but she couldn't get a

hearing in front of an administrative law judge until April 2006. She was

awarded

benefits one month later. She was able to survive financially because her

husband works, but the couple still had to cut extras like dining out or

driving newer cars.

Others face more desperate situations.

" We see the devastation caused by this backlog walk through our doors every

day, " said Sherry Whitener, a social worker and executive director of

Advocates for the Disabled in Phoenix. The non-profit agency helps about 3,000

disabled Arizonans each year, including many who try to secure Social Security

benefits.

" It's a daunting process, " Whitener said. " People come in here with bags of

documents and they don't know what it all means. . . . If people aren't

homeless when they start the process, they end up homeless because it takes so

long. We've had many clients die before their cases are decided. "

Reach the reporter at (602) 44-8285.

----------------------------

to apply or get info call:

Allsup, Inc.

1-800-279-4357 M-F 7 AM-5 PM CST

_www.allsup.com_ (http://www.allsup.com/)

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[Guest guest]

This is criminal situation. Its like we have completely forgotten the

reasons for Social Security in the first place.

I just found this article that makes a lot of good points about Social

Security and its history:

*Social Security is about insurance, not savings, *By Mark Thoma

When the Great Depression hit the United States in October 1929, the

economic and social turmoil that followed exposed the typical family's need

for economic security.

Workers who diligently endured the daily grind to support their families

could find themselves suddenly thrown into unemployment simply because a new

machine was invented, people changed their buying habits, production was

relocated or the economy entered a recession.

Prior to industrialization, the need for economic security was not as great.

In an agrarian economy, economic security is provided by extended family

relationships coupled with the largely self-sufficient nature of farms.

Industrialization led to large economic gains, but the resulting migration

to cities, the breakup of extended families, reliance on wage income as the

primary means of support and an increase in life expectancy substantially

increased the economic risk faced by the typical family. For a worker

dependent solely on wages, the loss of a job means a total lack of income,

not just hard times.

Without the help of others, abundant savings or some type of social

insurance program, starvation is a real possibility. Even a worker who has

assiduously saved for retirement can suddenly become impoverished due to

such events as an illness or by living longer than expected.

Programs such as unemployment compensation and Social Security arose out of

the Great Depression as a means to mitigate economic risk using the least

amount of society's valuable resources.

Social Security was never intended to be an individual savings account. It

was intended to provide a social safety net for people in retirement and

families that lose a primary wage earner, and to provide the insurance at

less expense than could be done privately.

People saving for their own retirement must save enough to sustain

themselves should they live a long time or incur large health care costs.

But this is not the optimal arrangement. Precisely the same goal can be

attained with a smaller amount of savings by each individual. If everyone

pools their funds, then each person needs to contribute only enough to

support the average life and health expectancy of the group.

It is no different than fire insurance. Without such insurance, people would

need to save enough to replace their homes should a fire break out. All risk

must be borne individually, and most people end up saving far more than

needed compared to an insurance program providing identical benefits. Others

are left without any protection at all. With fire insurance, each person

pays a smaller amount into a fund, and those unlucky few who need the

insurance collect. There is no expectation that the amount paid in and the

amount collected will necessarily match. Social Security insurance is no

different.

But why does the government need to provide such insurance? Couldn't the

private sector offer it instead to those interested in participating?

Before 1935, there was no such private insurance system available, so that

is one reason to suspect the private sector will not offer such insurance.

The lack of adequate pension plans offered by employers today is another.

In addition, economic theory suggests this may be an instance of market

failure - that is, a case in which the private market does not provide the

optimal amount of a good or service, such as insurance. Government

intervention is necessary to correct the market failure.

Even if insurance is provided by the private sector, when left to provide

for themselves many people do not make good decisions on saving for their

retirement years. Social Security was created to solve the problems that

arose when such insurance was left to the private sector.

The privatization debate has not paid enough attention to the insurance

aspect of Social Security. It is social insurance, not an individual savings

program, and it is important to recognize why it is optimal for government

to provide social insurance collectively rather than leaving it to

individuals.

Leaving it to the private sector didn't work before 1935, and there are good

reasons to believe it won't work now.

Whether Social Security actually needs fixing is another debate. If it is to

be fixed, anything that threatens to undermine the social safety net - and

privatization is a step that pushes in that direction - also threatens the

social contract the government forged with its citizens to provide for their

economic security.