Justice For All
mslife(AT)tsbbs02.tnet.com
Adult SSI Program Targeted
Colleagues:
The alert that follows from The Arc U.S. describes a serious
affront to the SSI program.
Once again, our advocacy is needed:
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ACTION ALERT.....ACTION ALERT.....ACTION ALERT.
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The Arc's Governmental Affairs Office,
1730 K Street, N.W.,
Suite 1212, Washington, D.C. 20006
(202)785-3388 / FAX (202)467-4179 / TDD (202)785-3411
E-Mail arcga(AT)radix.net
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May 22, 1998
Adult SSI Program Targeted
SUMMARY: The Republican leadership in the House Ways
and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources is currently
drafting proposals that would make drastic changes to the
Supplementary Security Income (SSI) Program. A draft list
of the proposals is dated April 21; a bill including these
proposals is expected to be introduced in early June.
Some of the provisions in this proposal would have
devastating effects on people with mental retardation who
depend on SSI as their sole means of support, including:
* Applying a family cap by reducing the payment of 2 SSI
recipients who live together by 25% and reducing the
payment of 5 or more recipients in the same household by
40%;
* Making it harder to become eligible by requiring
individuals to meet the "two-marked" standard under the
medical listings (similar to attempts to cut the children's
SSI program under the new welfare law) and by requiring
determinations to give more weight to medical (versus
functional) evidence; and
* Prohibiting asset transfers (including trusts) that
facilitate SSI eligibility. Transfers made within 3 years
of application to receive SSI benefits would be treated as
a financial resource of the person making the transfer; and
benefits would not be paid until the cumulative amount of
benefits that would have been paid equaled the
uncompensated value of the transferred asset.
Attached are more details on some of the more onerous
provisions of this proposal. We need to act now to prevent
this proposal from going forward.
ACTION NEEDED:
1. Forward this Alert immediately to local chapters of The
Arc and the rest of your disability network.
2. Contact all your Members in the House of
Representatives.
Tell them that the proposals will harm people with mental
retardation. Ask them to talk to their colleagues on the
House Ways and Means Committee and urge them to oppose
these proposals.
DISTRIBUTION: All State Chapters of The Arc and
Governmental Affairs email list-serve.
STAFF CONTACT: Marty Ford (mfgarc(AT)radix.net)
SSI/SSDI REFORM PROPOSALS
Major Concerns Regarding April 21, 1998 Draft*
A draft list of potential legislative proposals,
dated April 21, was provided by professional staff of the
House Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on
Human Resources. Although no formal legislative language
has been introduced, the draft list contains 31 proposals which
could come forward in legislative action in coming weeks.
Many would have serious impact on people with disabilities,
including people with mental retardation. Some could be
adjusted to address the concerns. Others are so
potentially damaging that The Arc must oppose them in full.
Below, several of the proposals with the most significant
impact are described or quoted from the April 21 list along
with a description of The Arc's concerns.
1. Require SSA to adjust the medical listings so all meet
at least the 2 marked standard "required under the welfare
reform law".
This provision appears to apply to adults as well as
children and would impose significant, fundamental change
throughout the SSI and Title II (Old Age, Survivors, and
Disability Insurance) programs. The proposal is based on
testimony by the General Accounting Office that several of
the Social Security Administration's medical listings do
not require a level of severity equal to "two marked" [an
impairment(s) which results in marked limitations in two
areas of functioning]. GAO cited the listings for mental
retardation, epilepsy, asthma, and cerebral palsy. The
result would be loss of eligibility for people with
significant impairments, including people with mental
retardation with IQs in the 60 to 70 range with another
significant impairment (such as cerebral palsy at a level
that does not equate to "marked"). There is simply no
justification for this wholesale change in the long-
standing use of SSA's listings.
Even as applied only to children, we oppose the provision
and note that we are on record along with several Senators
regarding our interpretation that the Senate-drafted
language which was adopted as the new statutory standard
for children (in the welfare law changes of 1996) did not
require this level of disability. If the standard is also
applied to adults and if coupled with the following
proposal on use of medical evidence, the adult SSI program
will face significant cuts similar to those in the
children's SSI program.
2. "Reduce subjectivity in eligibility determinations by
requiring that determinations be based on medical evidence
(defined as evidence provided by a doctor, psychiatrist or
other medical professional not related to the
applicant/beneficiary)."
This provision would also represent a significant,
fundamental change to the SSI and Title II programs. While
the statute already requires that there be medical evidence
of an impairment, many types of functional evidence are
used to assist in determining eligibility. Alone, without
medical evidence to support the diagnosis, such evidence is
insufficient to establish disability. However, functional
evidence is often essential to providing a full picture of
the nature and limitations of the person's condition. For
people with mental retardation, this evidence often comes
from teachers or other service providers who are not
considered medical sources. Failure to consider this
evidence would deprive people with disabilities, both
children and adults, of the full and fair evaluations they
are entitled to receive.
This provision is also seen as one of the first steps in
cutting back the adult SSI program in a way similar to the
Human Resources Subcommittee efforts to cut back on
eligibility for children.
3. Ending the SSI marriage penalty./(Household Cap)
The proposal would apply the "couples" limitation (150
percent of an individual's benefit) on benefits to any two
unmarried adults living together. Although it described as
eliminating the "marriage penalty", the real way to
eliminate the marriage penalty in SSI is to increase the
couple's benefit to the level of two individual SSI
benefits, not to create fictions about relationships among
others in order to reduce their benefits. If two women
with disabilities are able to afford the rent of an
apartment by sharing the apartment, they should not each
have their SSI reduced simply because they have figured out
a way to survive on their limited incomes.
Applying this proposed provision beyond two adults, to
homes where multiple SSI recipients live together, will
have a very devastating effect on group homes serving
people with disabilities, many of whom receive SSI and
contribute all but a very small portion of their monthly
benefits to the household expenses. If this provision
becomes law, the number of such homes and the quality of
care they are able to provide will significantly decrease.
4. Replace the current SSI 10 percent rule with a series of
rules.
This provision would lift the current 10 percent limit on
recovery of overpayments which protects SSI recipients from
having too large a portion of their monthly check held back
by SSA to pay back overpayments. This provision as simply
too harsh, particularly when the vast majority of
overpayments are created by SSA's failure to properly input
information reported by recipients into the computer. SSI
recipients (and people who receive both SSI and Title II
benefits) are living on virtually nothing -- a 10 percent
reduction is already a tremendous hardship.
5. Prohibit asset transfers that facilitate SSI eligibility
following some of the provisions in Medicaid law regarding
asset transfers and treatment of trusts.
Congress eliminated the SSI transfer of asset penalty
in 1988, recognizing that people generally transferred
assets to establish Medicaid eligibility, not SSI
eligibility, and that the requirement just created an
administrative nightmare for elderly and disabled
recipients as well as SSA. People who are applying for SSI
are not in the same financial league with those who were
hiring attorneys and financial planners to assist them in
becoming Medicaid eligible. By the time they apply for
SSI, they are by definition very poor. Penalties in the
early 1980s fell very hard on many elderly people who had
transferred modest assets to children or other relatives
and who were unable to sustain themselves during the
penalty period. At a minimum, the ban on benefits should
be limited to no more than the old two-year statutory bar.
However, since this bar could be life-threatening for many
people who are elderly or disabled, SSA must have authority
for waiver of the bar. Further, if assets incur a penalty
period in both SSI and Medicaid, there must be coordination
of the penalty periods to prevent the same amount of funds
from being "double-counted" as if the person could have
covered his/her own SSI and Medicaid expenses with the same
finite amount of money.
Further, in Sections 1917(c) and (d) of the Social
Security Act, there are certain exceptions to the Medicaid
transfer of asset provisions that allow people to transfer
assets to, or for the benefit of, people with disabilities
without incurring the transfer of asset penalties. There
are also provisions that allow people with disabilities
under age 65 to transfer assets into irrevocable trusts for
their own benefit (under certain conditions and generally
to provide services and goods unavailable through SSI and
Medicaid) which also exempt them from the transfer of asset
penalties. If the proposal is adopted, it is essential
that the full and complete Medicaid exceptions to the
prohibitions on transfers of assets also be included.
Kim Musheno
Chapter Relations and Communications Specialist
The Arc Governmental Affairs Office
email: kimarc(AT)radix.net
The May 5 issue of Government Report is now on-line:
http://TheArc.org/ga/newgr.html
--Mark Smith mslife(AT)tsbbs02.tnet.com
-- Fred Fay jfa(AT)mailbot.com Justice For All Moderator http://www.mailbot.com/justice
--Justice-For-All Moderator jfa(AT)mailbot.com
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