Hearing of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services... of the House Committee on Appropriations-Social Security Appropriations
Federal News Service February 25, 2004 Wednesday
Copyright 2004 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
February 25, 2004 Wednesday
HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, EDUCATION AND RELATED AGENCIES OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
SUBJECT: SOCIAL SECURITY APPROPRIATIONS
CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE ANNE NORTHUP (R-KY)
LOCATION: 2358 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.
WITNESSES:
JO ANNE B. BARNHART, COMMISSIONER, SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION;
JAMES G. HUSE, JR., INSPECTOR GENERAL, SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
BODY:
REP. RALPH REGULA (R-OH): We will get started. Mrs. Northup is going to take the hearing. I have a number of conflicts this morning but at least we can get started.
Mr. Huse, we're happy to have you here and I understand this is your last hearing. Well, it's a good one to go out on. I've been looking at your record here, 38 years with Social Security. Oh, in the government! I wondered, I thought you must have started at 12 when - (laughter) -- saw you were Secret Service and you were in the United States Army-and you look pretty young to me after all this-but we appreciate what you've done. I was interested in the statistics my staff has here that you had $356 million in this past fiscal year in investigations and you recovered about $55 million in fines and settlements and judgments and over $300 million in projected savings. We thank you. We need it all. (Laughs.)
The budget challenges of this year are substantial because we're getting, supposedly, a point five, half of one percent increase, in our whole budget, domestic budget as opposed to military and homeland security. I said I'm going to look up that guy who wrote that chapter in the Bible about feeding 5,000 with five fish and five loaves, that's about what we're trying to do.
Good morning, Anne. Well, I think I'll just let you take over here. I said you'd be in charge this morning. I've got to go speak to the Garden Club of America.
REP. ANNE NORTHUP (R-KY): (Off mike.)
REP. REGULA: Yeah. That's right. It should be interesting.
REP. NORTHUP: (Off mike.)
REP. REGULA: Are you a gardener?
REP. NORTHUP: Oh, yeah.
REP. REGULA: Are you? Maybe I should send you.
REP. NORTHUP: Send my appreciation to them.
REP. REGULA: I will give your regards. My wife's the gardener. Somehow --
(Pause.)
REP. NORTHUP: First of all, let me just invite you -- this is obviously an issue of great interest to this entire country and invite you to make some opening statements. We all your full opening statement, so it's not necessary to say everything that's part of the statement. But if you would give us the summary and hit the main points and then we'll be open for questions.
Thank you.
(Pause in proceedings.)
REP. NORTHUP: I believe your mike needs to be turned on. When it pops up, it's on. So maybe it's on now.
MS. JO ANNE B. BARNHART: Is it alright Now? Okay.
I was saying good morning, Madam Chairman and members of the committee. I'm very happy to have this opportunity to present the Social Security Administration's Fiscal Year 2005 Appropriations Request. I'd like to begin by introducing the gentleman sitting to my right, Dale Sopper, the deputy commissioner for Finance, Assessment and Management, who is no stranger to members of this committee and the staff that sits behind you.
I want to say how much I appreciate this committee's support for SSA in past years and I look forward to continuing to work with you in the best interest of our agency and the people who depend on our very important programs. I want to spend most of my time this morning answering your questions because I want to make sure I have an opportunity to address the issues of most concern to you. So I really just want to provide a very quick summary and submit my entire statement for the record, as requested.
As you know, the president's FY2005 budget designated $557 billion for Social Security. This figure includes $9 billion for administrative expenses, which reflects a 6.8 percent increase for SSA proper over FY2004. Social Security programs touch the lives of nearly every American and our requested increase is needed to supply computer and telecommunications equipment, support over 1,300 Social Security officers nationwide and provide salaries, benefits and the training that's necessary to deliver quality services to the public.
This budget request like last year, I believe, demonstrates the president's commitment to Social Security and its programs. I believe that's especially true given the context of the many competing priorities that the president and the Congress must balance in making funding decisions. And no, we did not get our full budget request for FY2004. I believe that through the really extraordinary efforts of Social Security employees over this past year and with full funding of our FY2005 request, we will be able to keep our service delivery plan on track to meet the 2008 service delivery goals that we established last year.
I'd like to take a moment to share with you some of the things that we've accomplished in the past year. We exceeded our agency-wide productivity goals. Social Security officers processed over 2.5 million disability claims. That was an increase of 350,000 claims from FY2001. Administrative law judge dispositions are the highest in history at 2.35 cases per day. Our Office of Hearing and Appeals processed 40,000 more hearings than FY2002 and in 2002, they processed 40,000 more hearings than FY2001. In November 2001, the average time to appeal an unfavorable hearing decision was 467 days. This past November, it took 252 days. Our pending appeal hearings is now 55,000 compared to 123,000 in 2001.
By incorporating technology at the Office of Appellate Operations, we were able to reduce the time that's required to code and file a (bin ?) of cases from 4.5 hours to 45 minutes. In January of 2003, it took an average of 120 days to prepare a case for a hearing in a Federal District Court. This past December, it took 26 days. We are on the highest score, green, on the president's management agenda and financial management -- in no small part, I must say publicly, due to the efforts of Mr. Sopper, who sits here with me -- and green in progress in all five categories.
Our efforts to strengthen homeland security resulted in further strengthening of our security procedures for enumeration. We successfully opened our first Social Security Card Center in Brooklyn, New York. And in January -- and perhaps most importantly -- we began to roll out the electronic disability system which will modernize our disability determination process. The committee may recall that when I first appeared before you, a little under two years ago, I promised that we were going to be rolling out electronic disability in 23 months in January '04 and, in fact, we did precisely that when the state of Mississippi on January 26 opened its electronic disability process.
I mentioned these accomplishments because we're proud of them, first of all, but, more important, because I think it's a demonstration of how the budget request of the president reflects his confidence in the ability and the dedication of the men and women of Social Security to be good stewards of the funds that we are entrusted with. I ask for your support and I pledge to you our unceasing commitment to provide quality service to the people of America.
Again, I truly appreciate this opportunity to present the Social Security Administration's budget request and I will try to answer any questions that you may have.
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REP. LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD (D-CA): Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
First of all, let me join with our chair in terms of the complimenting you on the accomplishments that you've made over the past year. I really think those are important accomplishments and certainly steps in the right direction. The questions that I have, the first one has to do with the area of refugees. There have been a number of news articles recently about the hardships that are being experienced by the elderly and disabled refugees who have lost their SSI benefits because they've reached the seven-year legal limit on benefits without being naturalized and there are going to be many more to come.
Given the fact that SSI benefits are only for a person that are disabled and elderly and that no other means-tested federal program requires refugees to become U.S. citizens to remain eligible for benefits, do you think that Congress should repeal this provision, especially given the many obstacles that refugees face and even trying to get through the process of becoming a citizen, the five-year wait, the delays in the whole citizenship process itself, in addition to their own problems of language barriers?
MS. BARNHART: I think you raise a really important issue and one that the president's budget actually attempts to address through a legislative proposal that's included in the budget request this year. And it's basically to extend SSI eligibility for certain categories of aliens and refugees, basically it's who it's focused on and particularly, and most notably, individuals with mental impairment and severely disabled refugees who are unable, quite frankly, to take the oath of allegiance, simply have an inability to do that, not that they don't want to because, as you point out, this is a category of immigrants to this nation who are most interested in becoming citizens, typically refugees and asylees (ph).
And so what the proposal would do is extend the seven-year limitation to eight years because information from the Bureau for - BICE, basically the Immigration Service-indicates that it takes an average of eight years for those refugees that you've spoken about to complete the path to citizenship and for three years, it would extend it to eight years and that would allow BICE time to rewrite the regulations so that some of the requirements that are impossible for those categories of refugees to meet could be addressed. So we think that's a very important --
REP. ROYBAL-ALLARD: But the reality is that even that one-year extension is really not going to be enough to make a difference for a lot of the refugees, those that have already been dropped, and many who are going to be dropped within the next year. Is there any plans to assist them, and then getting back to my question, do you think that Congress should drop that provision altogether?
MS. BARNHART: To be perfectly candid, I haven't really looked at that issue in and of itself in any great depth. I'm aware of the provisions that were passed in 1996 and the welfare reform legislation. And certainly we'd be happy to work with you and your staff to provide any information or analysis that we could in terms of what the effect of doing something like that would have. But I really am not in the position, today, to express an opinion one way or the other because I haven't looked at the issues thoroughly enough from that perspective.
REP. ROYBAL-ALLARD: Okay. Well, we'll --
MS. BARNHART: We've really been looking at it in terms of extending the timeline, but we'd be happy to engage in follow-up discussions with you.
REP. ROYBAL-ALLARD: Okay. I appreciate that.
Is my time up, because I have other questions?
REP. NORTHUP: (Off mike.)
REP. ROYBAL-ALLARD: Okay. I understand that the SSA will be playing a substantial role in the implementation of the new Medicare prescription drug legislation. You received $500 million for startup costs in the FY 04 and '05. The legislation seems to be very complicated, so I think you have a big job ahead of you. Can you tell the committee how you are using the $500 million, what progress is being made, and what obstacles you are currently encountering in preparing for this new program?
MS. BARNHART: Yes. And it is an enormous challenge, probably just as great for CMS as it is for SSA. But we do have some operational responsibilities that are important. And to date, we have actually requested and received $80 million of that $500 million. We anticipate spending $150 million of it in FY 2004 and $350 million of it in FY 2005. We will actually start hiring people this year to be prepared to do the work we need to do in terms of the Part D and the subsidy, determining the subsidy, because we have some very specific requirements for us.
My approach to implementing this has been to minimize complexity for beneficiaries because it is complex, to minimize complexity for our SSA operations, because obviously the less complex it is, the easier it is and the less costly it is to implement, and also to maximize the use of technology. So a good part of that $80 million will be spent on making the system changes that we need to make so that we can-going back to my first response to the chairman-so that we can use automation to the greatest extent possible. And, of course, that also means we need to make it less complex.
Most of the policy decisions are vested with CMS, and so we've been working very closely with them. I have established a task force that's operating right out of my front office, and I brought in my regional commissioner from New York who has many years of operational experience because I really felt we needed that kind of perspective since deciding how we're going to provide this service to the public is important. In the meantime, we also have been keeping track of the increased number of calls we've gotten to our 800 number, and our survey indicates approximately 40,000 additional calls a month so far. We expect that number to go up.
And most of the calls are actually requesting information. Even though CMS has set up an 800 number, the fact of the matter is people are used to call the Social Security, and of course they register for Medicare with us when they retire, so it's the logical place to go. We also have put a link on our website to CMS and provide information there.
I would also mention that the president's budget includes provisions for a $100 million contingency fund that we would be able to draw on, should we need to.
REP. ROYBAL-ALLARD: Okay. Thank you.
REP. NORTHUP: Thank you.
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