Hi Carl and all,
I suspect if this new and bad trump idea gets put into practice, many visually
impaired and legally blind folks will find it much harder to get either SSI or
SSDI.
I can see it now; SSA could use medical advances that may help some folks to
take a very cruel ax to the number of both legally blind and visually impaired
beneficiaries.
Bob Hachey
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Thursday, January 09, 2020 12:07 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Trump Administration Quietly Goes After
Disability Benefits
Miriam and All,
Over the years I have accompanied many newly blinded clients to Social Security
meetings. First, there are differences between my experiences assisting others
in the early 70's-80's, and those personal experiences between 1994 and 2000.
So I'm fairly certain that there have been changes during these past 25 years.
But one constant has been that totally blind people are never turned away from
their first application. Another constant is that legally blind people have a
much rougher road in seeking coverage. The Social Security staff are in
possession of all the required medical forms, but they are not trained in the
wide variations of eye conditions. A majority of first-time legally blind
applicants are turned away.
My suggestion to any partially sighted person planning to go before the Social
Security and request SSDI,request to be accompanied by an attorney who
specializes in Social Security Law, or with a similarly trained staff person
from the state agency in which they reside.
Finally, always question any statements or forms you do not fully understand.
And always abide by any deadlines given you.
If it had not been for the support I received from SSDI, we could never have
set up our rehab program. I believe that the government has been well
compensated, since we're still working after 25 years in retirement.
Carl Jarvis
On 1/9/20, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Blind people have always had a privileged situation in relation to
these benefits. I wonder if this might change.
Miriam
Trump Administration Quietly Goes After Disability Benefits By Arthur
Delaney, Yahoo! News
08 January 20
Some Americans could lose Social Security Disability Insurance
benefits under a recent Trump administration proposal ― a change that
could affect thousands of people but that has received little
attention since it was first floated in November.
Under the proposed change, the government would look more closely at
whether certain disability insurance recipients still qualify as
"disabled" after they've already been awarded those benefits. While
recipients already have to demonstrate their continuing disability
every few years, the proposal would ramp up the examinations,
potentially running still-eligible beneficiaries out of the program.
The extra reviews will help "maintain appropriate stewardship of the
disability program," the administration said in the proposal, arguing
current rules fail to account fully for the possibility of medical
improvement.
It's just one of several unilateral moves the Trump administration has
made against social programs that make it easier for people to survive
without labor market income. The proposals may save the government a
few dollars, but they also send a political message that President
Trump is cracking down on the "takers" Republicans have vilified for
decades.
Democrats and disability advocates said the proposed new regulation
would only hurt disabled people, that it hasn't been vetted and that
the rule-making process should be delayed. More than 8 million
Americans receive disability benefits based on past employment and a
loss of wage income due to the onset of a severe disability.
"We are concerned that under the proposed rule, some individuals
subject to review will be simply unable to navigate the process and,
as a result, lose their benefits even though there is no medical
improvement," a group of House and Senate Democrats led by Rep.
Richard Neal (D-Mass.) said in a December letter.
The administration, for its part, is making only a halfhearted
argument that ramping up medical reviews to kick people off disability
benefits is actually going to help them. "We believe that there may be
positive employment effects as a result of these proposed rules,
although we cannot currently quantify them," the Social Security
Administration said in its notice of proposed rule-making.
"If they haven't improved enough to go back to self-supporting work
then they probably should still be eligible for benefits," Kathleen
Romig, a senior policy analyst at the liberal Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities, said in an interview.
The regulation could affect hundreds of thousands of SSDI and
Supplemental Security Income recipients, Romig said, potentially
ending benefits for tens of thousands. The administration didn't
estimate how many would lose benefits, but said the proposal would
save $2 billion over a decade.
The rule would not take effect until sometime after the administration
releases a final version, for which no date has been set ― and as with
other regulations the administration has issued without input from
Congress, a lawsuit could stop it.
Social Security disability benefits are not easy to get, and most
applications are denied. Once an application is approved, the
government conducts "continuing disability reviews" every so often to
make sure the beneficiary still can't work. How often the reviews
occur depends on whether the applicant's chance of medical improvement
gets classified as expected, possible, or not expected.
The draft rule would add a new category: medical improvement likely,
as in likelier than possible, but not as likely as expected. Reviews
would occur "approximately every two years," as opposed to within 18
months for people with expected medical improvement and within 3 years
for those with possible improvement. Overall, according to the
administration, there would be 2.6 million more reviews, an 18%
increase, at an anticipated cost of $1.8 billion ― almost wiping out
the $2 billion worth of savings on benefits.
For the new category, the regulation specifically targets older
disabled workers who didn't win benefits strictly because of their
disabilities, but also because they were lower-skilled and unlikely to
be able to succeed in some new occupation.
Conservatives have complained about the so-called "medical-vocational grid"
that the Social Security Administration uses to award benefits to
people whose impairments are less severe but who nonetheless have
virtually no place in the labor market.
Mark Warshawsky, a Trump-appointed Social Security commissioner for
retirement and disability policy, argued in a 2015 paper he
co-authored that "the grid's guidelines make it easier to award SSDI
benefits to middle-aged and older workers, unskilled workers, and
non-English-speakers, and should be eliminated and replaced with a
simpler, fairer, and more uniform system for determining eligibility."
In a formal comment letter this week, the National Organization of
Social Security Claimants' Representatives cited research showing that
most people whose benefits are terminated do not go on to earn much
money in the ensuing five years because they are too disabled. The
letter also noted that the administration itself admitted it could not
quantify any beneficial employment effects.
"The proposed rule relies on mere guesses or wishes to justify a
change that evidence shows to be harmful," NOSSCR director Barbara
Silverstone wrote.
"This is not just arbitrary and capricious, but callous and malicious."
The Social Security Administration did not respond to a request for
comment.
The White House declined to comment.
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