Turmoil at the Social Security Administration

The Social Security Administration is in turmoil due, in part, to the Medicare Part D program:

Internal Documents Reveal That Medicare Drug Benefit Is Causing Chaos At Social Security Administration, Representative Waxman: In a letter to Speaker Hastert, Rep. Waxman asks for hearings on new revelations that budget cuts and the Medicare Part D program are overwhelming the Social Security Administration. Letter to the Speaker Letter to the Speaker.

And here is the letter (pdf, Word):

February 3, 2006

The Honorable J. Dennis Hastert Speaker of the House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515

Dear Mr. Speaker:

I am writing regarding an urgent problem that appears to be overwhelming the Social Security Administration. I have obtained a January 21, 2006, email that the Deputy Commissioner of Operations for Social Security, Linda McMahon, sent to all Social Security Administration Operations employees. The message reads as follows:

Ordinarily I would be sending you a Happy New Year note at this time, but the circumstances we are facing seem to call for a different message. I didn’t want you to think I’m out of touch with reality and don’t know about the significant challenges you are experiencing.

Ever since the Medicare Modernization Act passed, those of you on the front line have been expressing your deep concern that SSA is not positioned well to help people understand, enroll in and negotiate the new Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Program. Now we are seeing the consequences of that fact. Our National 800 Number Network has been overwhelmed for weeks, with busy rates running above 35 percent many days. In the last few weeks, those folks who can’t get us on the phone have been coming into our field offices in large numbers. In fact, during the first two weeks in January, we had nearly 200,000 visitors a day — as many as 60,000 more than we saw in the fall. We already had large backlogs in our Processing Centers, and those will be exacerbated ...

It’s not a rosy picture, and the news doesn’t get better. Congress finally passed our FY06 budget in late December, and they gave us $300 million less than the President requested. That means we will not be able to replace all the employees we lose to retirement this year or accomplish all the automation projects we had intended to do to streamline work processes. At the same time, we have been given new mandates ...

I won’t try to kid you. This is going to be a very difficult year, and the budget picture for next year doesn't look any better. ... Thanks for doing your best to cope ...

Other emails and communications confirm the chaos that the Medicare prescription drug program has caused for the Social Security Administration, describing “hemorrhaging” at Social Security call centers and the provision of inaccurate information to seniors. ... Additional documents that I have obtained bolster the concerns raised by Ms. McMahon, and raise new issues. ...

Sincerely,

Henry A. Waxman Ranking Minority Member

There is quite a bit more, including documentation, in the original.

Comments

[Bruce Webb]

Medicare Part D was a predictable disaster. Indeed it was a predicted disaster. But it is not going away and all of the conceivable fixes shove it towards single payer.

Future generations of Cato economists will be cursing George 43, assuming Cato survives its gruesome encounter with the 2006 Report of the Trustees of Social Security.

Medicare drug coverage is a fabulous thing. Medicare drug coverage as implemented by Bush and Big Pharma is a trainwreck. But we can salvage the coverage from the wreckage. FDR! LBJ! GWB!! Laying the foundation for Socialized Medicine nationwide!!

Man that has to hurt. I doubt GWB really wanted that to be the high point of his presidency.

[dryfly]

Cato will survive as long as there are CFG types funding it... like the Mises Mouses... as long as wealthy folks have time & money there will be Catos.

[Bruce Webb]

Well dryfly we will see. Cato itself was founded with a very specific vision: markets work, central planning doesn't.
http://www.cato.org/about/about.html
"Market liberals appreciate the complexity of a great society, they recognize that socialism and government planning are just too clumsy for the modern world. It is--or used to be--the conventional wisdom that a more complex society needs more government, but the truth is just the opposite. The simpler the society, the less damage government planning does. Planning is cumbersome in an agricultural society, costly in an industrial economy, and impossible in the information age. Today collectivism and planning are outmoded and backward, a drag on social progress."

Somehow the encounter of this vision with the reality that Social Security is fully funded going forward and operates at levels of efficiencies unknown in the private sector is going to hurt. Badly designed governments function badly. No news there. Elevating that observation to a First Principle suffers when it finally brushes up against and stumbles over the Third Rail of American Politics. A fully working and fully charged Third Rail.

[calmo]

Great post Bruce,
I wonder if that statement, (also known as 'the mission' (not to be confused with some little hut in the wilderness trying to convert the savages) [Yes, I am a big supporter of the savages, you?]
has ossified in the Paleocene Period [Yes, right before The Apex, the epoch in which 4yr olds discover plastercine.]in which it was incubated.
Or whether it shows any, (I mean ANY), signs of life and well, intelligence --no matter how rudimentary, primative, --just so that I can justify tapping these fingers (in some vain hope of aiding their recovery) and persuade myself that it might be worth the effort of pointing their (stone cold stupid) noses at that claim: "Planning is .. impossible in the information age."

This vision helps me when I hear/see/think CATO: Peter Seller's aid in the Pink Panther.

[Emmanuel]

Sorry, Congressman Waxman, but really, the "Horrorable" Dennis Hastert couldn't care less. Big Pharma owns him lock, stock, and barrel--to the tune of $194,700 in contributions since 1999.

The Cato Institute should be proud. These are free markets at their finest--politicians for sale.

[save_the_rustbelt]

I've been reading healthcare legislation for 30 year and this is the worst ever written.

There are barely enough adjectives to decribe how bad this is from either an operational, financial or customer level.

Do we fix this before or after 2008?

[anne]

Again, I too, find adding drug coverage to Medicare essential though legislatively flawed and awfully implemented. I am optimistic on the future of coverage.