New Commission to Address Debt, Social Security

Washington Post

Faced with growing alarm over the nation's soaring debt, the White House and congressional Democrats tentatively agreed Tuesday to create an independent budget commission and to put its recommendations for fiscal solvency to a vote in Congress by the end of this year.

Under the agreement, President Obama would issue an executive order to create an 18-member panel that would be granted broad authority to propose changes in the tax code and in the massive federal entitlement programs -- including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security......FULL STORY

Any questions may be directed to: rsi5@srt.com

Rule Changes for SSI

The Social Security Administration is amending their Supplemental Security Income (SSI) regulations by making technical revisions to their rules on income and resources.

These final rules are effective on February 10, 2010. You can find the full Federal Register notice and full details HERE.

Below you will find a brief summary:

Statutory Employees:

- Previously, SSA treated statutory employees the same as employees for SSI eligibility and payment-amount purposes and considered their wages as earned income. After this change to the Act, SSA now treats statutory employees as self-employed individuals and counts only their net earnings, deducting business expenses before calculating their income.

Exclusion of Child Tax Credit (CTC) From Income and Resources


- SSA excludes from income the payment of a refundable CTC.
- SSA excludes the payment of a refundable CTC from resources for the 9 months following the month of receipt.

Exclusion of Flood Mitigation Payments from Income and Resources

- Payments made for flood mitigation activities are not counted as income or resources when determining SSI eligibility and payment amounts.

Exclusion of Energy Employee, Occupational Illness Medical Benefits, and Compensation Payment from Income and Resources

- Medical benefits and compensation payments made to energy employees because of occupational illnesses are not counted as income or resources for purposes of determining eligibility to receive, or for determining the amount of, certain Federal benefits, including SSI.

Home Exclusion to Victims of Domestic Abuse

- Currently, a victim fleeing from domestic abuse may return to a potentially dangerous home environment simply to avoid losing SSI because of an ownership interest in the home. SSA is extending the home exclusion to victims of domestic abuse who flee an abusive situation, but maintain an ownership interest in an otherwise excluded home. This exclusion continues until the SSI applicant or beneficiary establishes a new principal place of residence or takes other action rendering the home no longer excludable.

Conditional Payments

- Currently, SSA can make ‘conditional payments’’ to give an SSI applicant or beneficiary some time in which to sell excess non-liquid resources and convert them to cash. SSA conditions these payments on the SSI applicant’s or beneficiary’s written agreement to sell these non-liquid resources within 9 months for real property and within 3 months for all other non-liquid resources and repay the conditional payments with the proceeds. Under current rules, SSA will not make conditional payments if the SSI applicant or beneficiary has countable liquid resources in excess of 3 times the monthly Federal Benefit Rate (FBR).


- SSA is deleting the limitation on liquid resources that was a prerequisite to receiving conditional benefit payments to simplify their conditional payments rule.


Any questions may be directed to: rsi5@srt.com

Compassionate Allowance

The Social Security Administration recognizes that it has an obligation to provide benefits quickly to applicants whose medical conditions are so serious that their conditions obviously meet disability standards.

Compassionate allowances are a way of quickly identifying diseases and other medical conditions that invariably qualify under the Listing of Impairments based on minimal objective medical information. Compassionate allowances allow Social Security to quickly target the most obviously disabled individuals for allowances based on objective medical information that we can obtain quickly.

The initial list of Compassionate Allowance conditions was developed as a result of information received at public outreach hearings, public comment on an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, comments received from the Social Security and Disability Determination Service communities, and the counsel of medical and scientific experts. Social Security also considered which conditions are most likely to meet our current definition of disability.

Please see the following link for a list of the 50 conditions that were selected for rollout of the Compassionate Allowances initiative. Social Security has indicated that the list will expand over time. HERE

Any questions may be directed to: rsi5@srt.com

The Red Books Are Coming!

The electronic version of the 2010 Redbook is now available on the Social Security Administration website:

http://www.socialsecurity.gov/redbook/


Any questions may be directed to: rsi5@srt.com