New Mexico Senator, Bingaman Presses Social Security Administration to Keep Disability Process Fair
U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman is raising concerns about proposed changes to the process for applying for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), saying they are not an effective way to address the backlog problem.
Social Security benefits are the only means of survival for millions of elderly and disabled Americans. These individuals rely on the Social Security Administration (SSA) to promptly and fairly adjudicate their applications for disability benefits. Unfortunately, SSA offices have been underfunded for years, and as a result hearings are not taking place in a timely fashion. In some cases, New Mexicans are waiting 18 months for their cases to be heard.
To address the backlog problem, SSA has announced a series of changes to the SSDI hearing process. Among the proposed changes, SSA would give more discretion to the hearing officer to dismiss a case and would prevent an applicant from submitting information to support his or her case in the five day period before a hearing.
Bingaman joined fellow Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over SSA, in protesting the proposed changes. In a letter to SSA Commissioner Michael Astrue, the senators said adopting the proposed changes to the hearing process could undermine an applicant’s ability to properly make his or her case. They pointed out, for example, that an applicant cannot control whether a physician submits medical documentation before the five day window closes.
“We question whether claimants should be held accountable for the responsiveness of health care providers. The Social Security Act requires SSA to accept new evidence adduced at a hearing. It would exceed SSA’s statutory authority systematically to disallow that evidence,” the senators wrote.
They also said giving a hearing officer the ability to dismiss a case if the applicant was unable to attend pre- or post-hearing meetings compromises the claimant’s rights to due process. If a case was closed for these reasons, the claimant likely would simply start the application process all over again – a move that would add to the backlog problem, not solve it.
“Shifting a backlog is not an effective solution,” the senators wrote in their letter to Astrue.
One solution to the backlog problem is increasing staffing levels at SSA offices. Bingaman last year secured an additional $150 million for that purpose.
