CT Blue

Dean Baker makes an obvious point, therefore one that those claiming that the Social Security Disability program is abused totally ignore:

Wall Street Journal Soon to Run Piece on Improper Denials of Disability Claims

That’s inevitable, since any fair-minded newspaper that ran a column on improper approvals would surely want to balance it out. For those who missed it, the Wall Street Journal had a column by George Mason economist Mark Warshawsky and his grad student Ross Marchand complaining about a limited number of administrative-law judges who approve disability appeals at a very high rate.

The piece referred back to data from 2008, which showed that 9 percent of Social Security administrative law judges had approval rates of more than 90 percent in a year when the overall approval rate was 70 percent. They conclude that these judges cost the disability program more than $23 billion due to wrongly approved claims.

…

The takeaway is that there are clearly judges who error on the reject side as well as the approval side. It appears that SSA has taken steps to limit unwarranted approvals. It is not clear that measures have been taken to address the problem of judges wrongly denying appeals. We should not want to waste money on undeserving claims, but we also should not want to see workers who are genuinely disabled being denied the benefits for which they have paid. It is far from clear that at present the program errors more in awarding undeserving claims than in denying deserving ones.

via Beat the Press

Of course, the Wall Street Journal will not be publishing a companion piece, as Baker knows so well.

This is something I know a bit about, as most of my legal practice is in this area, and I can assure anyone who wants to listen that the number of wrongly denied claims far exceeds those wrongly granted.

Here’s a bit of the flavor of what we get from the judges who are looking to deny. Among other things, the judge is supposed to assess the claimant’s credibility; what the judge believed, what he or she didn’t believe, and why. Obviously, if a claimant’s overall level of activity is greater than they allege they are capable of, then you can assume they’re stretching the truth a bit. On the other hand, there are some logical leaps that are a bit over the top. I have a case presently in federal court involving a relatively young man with a very bad knee problem. The doctors to whom Social Security sent him for examination actually said he could not do sedentary work, which is the standard for obtaining disability at his age. Such a fidng by the agency’s hand-picked docor is a rare event. But the judge would have none of it, because the claimant couldn’t be believed about the level of his disability. Because why? Here’s why:

The claimant’s allegation of disability based on his medically determinable severe impairments is only partially credible. The claimant told Dr. X that he lived with his two children, ages 4 and 5, and he continued to drive (Exhibit 1F), which implies that he cares for them. At the hearing, the claimant testified that he lives with his younger, 9 year old son and his girlfriend, who works as a manager of a wine and spirits shop. He said that he has a driver’s license, has no car, but drives rarely. The claimant testified that he came to Connecticut in 2009 by airplane. He said that since living in Connecticut, he has traveled to Florida to visit a friend. The claimant testified that he passes time by lying in bed and watching television. He said that he socializes with his girlfriend, but they do not go out. This level of activity is inconsistent with the allegation of total disability. (Doctor’s name X’d for privacy reasons)

Got that? The guy’s knee problems can’t be as bad as he says because he watches TV lying down and he took a plane twice in 5 years. Also, he has a girlfriend, and he takes care of his kids. This reasoning is absurd on its face even if you don’t know that the judge was mischaracterizing the evidence about his childcare, his driving, and his traveling. We are now awaiting word from a federal magistrate about whether watching television lying down really proves that a guy’s knee problem isn’t as bad as he claims.

This is not unusual. This is normal. In fact, even the TV thing is widespread. I’ve had judges say that watching television proves that a client’s mental health problems are not as bad as they claim. Not one has ever explained why the ability to watch television proves a thing about one’s mental health, although, to be fair, it is not as far fetched as the claim that it disproves a knee problem.

Oh, did I mention the case about the lady with a paralyzed stomach who couldn’t havve been as bad off as she claimed because she didn’t get life threatening surgery that was mentioned, but never recommended, by her doctor? And then there was the case…