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    The Truth Squad: Busting Myths on Social Security and Medicare


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    October 18 , 2007

     

     

     

     

     

    The United States Senate
    Washington , DC 20510

    Dear Senator:

    On behalf of the millions of members and supporters of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, I write to urge you to include additional funding in the FY 2008 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) appropriations bill for Social Security Administration (SSA) administrative expenses. While we are grateful the Senate Labor-HHS Committee has approved $125 million above the President's request, we believe the agency needs additional funding to avoid further office closings and an increasing disability backlog.

    Disability backlogs continue to increase at an alarming rate. Currently, over three-quarters of a million individuals are waiting for a hearing decision, and that number is projected to grow to one million by 2010. Furthermore, the time that an applicant must wait for a hearing continues to rise. The average processing time for a hearing is currently about 513 days and is projected to increase to 541 days next year. There are nearly 275,000 hearings nationwide in which claimants have been waiting over one year to receive a decision on their appeal.

    In recent years, Congress has increased SSA's responsibilities as a part of Medicare and Intelligence Reform legislation, and field offices are averaging over 850,000 visitors a week this year. Meanwhile, SSA continues to downsize its labor force, reaching the lowest staffing level in over 30 years. As a result, waiting times for constituents visiting Social Security Field Offices have significantly increased and will only be exacerbated as SSA continues to close field offices across the country. Likewise, Field Offices are receiving an unprecedented number of phone inquiries, about 61 million business-related telephone calls per year, but are not adequately staffed to answer the calls. Consequently, the telephone busy rate in Field Offices averaged 51.0% in Fiscal Year 2006.

    Under any funding scenario currently being considered by Congress, SSA will have limited resources to maintain current levels of services and reduce the hearings backlog. Therefore, it is critically important that you provide funding for SSA at a level closer to the $10.1 billion recommended in the FY 2008 Budget Resolution. This additional funding would enable SSA to dramatically reduce the backlog in five years.

    We applaud you for your continued leadership in this area.  We look forward to working with you toward the resolution of this important issue.

    Sincerely,

    Barbara B. Kennelly
    President and CEO