Today, the House Ways and Means Committee will hold the second of a series of hearings on social security disability benefits, with invited speakers only. Once again, the hearing will focus only on “combating disability waste, fraud and abuse”.
It’s discouraging and disappointing to the many folks waiting years for decisions to have these hearings once again fail to address the biggest problems in the system – the long delays experienced by claimants and the inconsistencies between the percentage of claimants denied initially and on reconsideration who ultimately prevail on their claims.
But in announcing the hearing, Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Sam Johnson (R-TX) said, “Waste, fraud, and abuse in the disability insurance program cheat honest, hardworking American taxpayers. As we work to secure the future of this program, we need to protect the American taxpayer from con artists who are stealing from the system by making sure benefits are paid only to those who deserve them.”
According to the Subcommittee website, over the past four decades DI program annual costs have climbed from $18 billion to $124 billion as the number of those receiving benefits has more than tripled from 2.7 to 9.7 million. In their 2011 Annual Report, the Social Security Trustees project that the DI Trust Fund will become exhausted in 2018, at which point revenues will cover only 86 percent of benefits. The DI program currently has an overpayment rate of 1.5 percent.
Is it important to combat waste and fraud? Of course. But it’s also important to keep in mind the millions of Americans with legitimate claims, who wait years for a fair adjudication, sometimes losing their homes and irreparably damaging their health, while they wait.