NPN benefitsBlog

SSA Website Redesign: A New Public Face?

The Social Security Administration(SSA) gets over 50 million hits a year (2006 data) to its website socialsecurity.gov. With that kind of internet traffic, SSA wanted needed to update and redesigned its website to make it more user friendly and usable. It is a matter of keeping up with current technology. Critics say SSA's old website was a product of inefficient design and outdated webpage browsing technologies. The new site, as SSA notes, "uses design principles in the industry by reducing [page] clutter, improving navigation, making better use of graphics, reducing the need to scroll down and prioritizing items on the page". SSA Commissioner Michael J. Astrue suggested in public comments that the web redo is SSA's new public face. It is an improvement in the agency's web design, but I wouldn't say SSA's website is a quantum leap in public service enhancement. How SSA is handling other more significant issues (like the disability backlog) is the real public face of the agency.

SSA's redesigned website divides the page into 5 topics representing SSA's 5 primary benefit service areas: Retirement, Survivors, disability, SSI and Medicare. SSA says that it "had several focus groups with members of the public and tested the new site for usability and compliance to ensure that those with disabilities could easily navigate its new Web site."

On SSA's website there is a short, online video that describes the new web changes. There is also a captioned version as well as a written transcript of the video for help people with visual and hearing disabilities. In addition, there is also a function that allows for larger print and there are different language versions of Social Security information for people with limited English proficiency.

There is a big reason that the Social Security needs a website that works better. SSA is pushing a lot of its service activities onto the web. This new site move toward accommodating more and more web- based services including applying for disability benefits and appealing SSA decisions that had been traditionally provided in SSA's local offices in face-to-face interaction with SSA representatives.

Demographics and economics are pushing SSA to become more internet savvy. Thomas Hughes, chief information officer at SSA, noted recently in an interview with Washington Technology that some 10 million people will retire in the next five years. SSA estimates this means 80 million baby-boomers will be eligible for benefits. Mr. Hughes does not expect SSA's workforce to grow along with the expanding base of customers(note this a current Administration policy decision of cutting the federal workforce that justifies his approach). Indeed the SSA workforce already been reduced by 7.1% in the last 5 years. Technology, Hughes says, is the only way to meet this demand. To that retirement surge add the Medicare Drug Prescription program, the staggering backlog of disability benefit cases and throw in a few Homeland Security functions and what we find is a huge mess. This mess IS the real public face of the Social Security Administration.

Instead of just relying on technology, the agency and Congress needs to budget some funds for additional workforce. Technology can make the process easier, but eventually in a human service organization you have to have humans giving service. It is hard fact to get around. The SSA programs are difficult to understand by design and are set up for SSA to be gatekeepers of the program. To abdicate that role in favor of seemingly broad-based, save-the-day kinds technological advances makes no sense.

Technically the new SSA website is a vast improvement over the older version, but keeping up with current web technology is no reason to spin this as some public service enhancement. It is not. Putting more and more of its SSA agency functions on the web works fine for people who are hooked up to the web. That is the fatal flaw. Many people who are aged and people with disabilities (SSA's major constituents) do not have access to the internet. Some people who are aged or disabled on limited fixed income just can not afford the $45 or so a month for an internet connection and purchase a computer system to get hooked up to the web. Too, it does little good, for example, to make it easy to appeal SSA decisions on the web if it takes 3 years of pencil whipping for that appeal to finally be decided. It is even more disturbing to learn that Social Security representatives have been instructed to "give priority to internet applications for benefits". Improvements to SSA's website should not mask the agency's fundamental service problems. It helps, but that is not the real service problem and the problem can't be solved by just a new website and a public relations spin on how great they are for recognizing the obvious.

If you have comments regarding the SSA's new site you can comment at new.homepage@ssa.gov.

Federal Minimum Wage Jumps 70 Cents

The federal minimum wage increases to $6.55 today. The increase is up 70 cents from $5.85. The increase is the second of 3 planned increases provided for by Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 that will eventually raise the minimum wage to $7.25. It is expected to have a wide impact for workers with disabilities and others working in low-wage jobs. Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia already have higher minimum wage standards than the new federal requirement and are not affected.

President Loses On His Veto of Medicare Bill

On July 15, 2008, President Bush vetoed H.R. 6331, the “Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008". On that same day, the US House of Representatives and the Senate voted to override the President Bush veto of the bill. The House vote was 383–41 and the Senate vote was 70–26. H.R. 6331 became P.L. 110-275.

VA Announces On-Line Claims Disability Applications

WASHINGTON (July 16, 2008) - The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) sent a press release to the National PASS Network this morning announcing today that on-line applications are now accepted from veterans, survivors and other claimants filing initial applications for disability compensation, pension, education, and vocational rehabilitation and employment benefits without the additional requirement to submit a signed paper copy of the application.

Effective immediately, VA will now process applications received through its on-line application website (VONAPP) without the claimant's signature. The electronic application will be sufficient authentication of the claimant's application for benefits. Normal development procedures and rules of evidence will still apply to all VONAPP applications.

VONAPP is a Web-based system that benefits both internal and external users. Veterans, survivors and other claimants seeking compensation, pension, education, or vocational rehabilitation benefits can apply electronically without the constraints of location, postage cost, and time delays in mail delivery.

VONAPP reduces the number of incomplete applications received by VA, decreasing the need for additional development by VA claims processors. The on-line application also provides a link to apply for VA health care benefits.

According to the VA, over 3.7 million veterans and beneficiaries receive compensation and pension benefits from VA and approximately 523,000 students receive education benefits. Approximately 90,000 disabled veterans participate in VA's Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment program.

US Long-Term Care Financing Needs Change

According to a recent brief from the Center for Retirement Research, How Can We Improve Long-Term Care Financing? the existing system for providing long-term care in the United States is in significant need of change. About $200 billion each year for is spent by Americans for long-term care, but many older and disabled Americans still end up without needed care. Demographic changes indicate the system will be even more strained as a surge of aging Baby Boomers need to access to the system in the next decade.

Nearly 50% of long-term care in the United States is funded by Medicaid which provides a fairly comprehensive coverage for low- income Americans. The middle class is short changed in this system though. They can purchase expensive private insurance or rely on family members to provide the needed care. Few people purchase the long-term insurance coverage against the high costs of long-term care. The average cost of a private room in a nursing home was $74,095 a year in 2005. Medicare does not cover long-term care and only about 9 percent of the population ages 55 and older had any form of private long-term care insurance. Many Americans incorrectly believe that long-term care comes with Social Security and Medicare. This is the focus of the problem. Medicare only covers the first 100 days in a nursing home after a hospital stay and only skilled care is needed Studies show about 2/3 of people turning 65 in 2005 will need long-term care at some point and they will need that care for about 3 years. Clearly a huge problem is looming on the horizon.

There is wide agreement that there is a need for change to improve the system and make long-term care accessible to more Americans. However, predictably, there is little agreement on what kind of change is really needed. According the author of the brief, there are three approaches to addressing the problem by expanding the coverage and reducing costs. One approach is to enhance private long-term insurance by expanding federal and state subsidies. There is some debate, however, that costly subsidies are not a prudent use of limited public tax dollars. A second approach would be to create a new social insurance program like most countries in the western industrialized world. A third, and more likely scenario for the United States, would be to create a "hybrid" public-private that model that would require people to purchase private insurance through a government program and provide benefits like today's Social Security disability. This "benefit" would have more flexibility built in to take care of caregiving and assistive technology needs without the complex government regulations or private insurance limitations on services. It could work, but families will have to learn the skills needed to provide in-home care and how to hire and manage needed home health care workers.

As the author noted, current reforms that are being talked about today all have problems but they are at least an attempt to make long term care insurance more widely available by moving away from a Medicaid welfare based model to one of private and public funded insurance. Using an insurance model, the theory is that more people will be in the risk pool to spread the risk around and thus lower the costs.

The new proposals have some merit. It is a dialogue that must occur.