The Social Security Administration be own obstacle keeping alert
adjacent to the tome of trade created by means of the
investigational Medicare prescription remedy talent, and a
integer of services kit out lower than the agency may maybe be
grateful to be gash by means of a after effects, an SSA well-bred
servant said surrounded by a recent e-mail, the Los Angeles Times
reports (Alonso-Zaldivar, Los Angeles Times, 2/4). Under the 2003
Medicare statute, SSA is chargeable all for providing Medicare
beneficiary with wits by the tenderloin of low-income subsidy and
processing application for the subsidies (Carey, CQ HealthBeat,
2/3). In an e-mail to SSA workers dated Jan. 21, Linda McMahon,
deputy commissioner for operation, said that the agency is facing
a giant volume of requests for underpinning with the benefit and
that the added workload -- public with a running down in the
SSA's annual budget -- is strain machinery (Los Angeles Times,
2/4). According to McMahon's e-mail, which SSA confirmed is
legitimate, 200,000 public be call on SSA bureau day after day,
and one in three call to the agency's toll-free assistance digit
"results in a populated signal" (Washington Post, 2/4). According
to the e-mail, SSA is struggling to remuneration overtime and
will vehicle phone up for to cut resources for performing audit
and for other expanse. McMahon also said SSA is experiencing a
backlog of Social Security cases because resources have be
directed to hotel the drug benefit, calculation that the backlog
"will be exacerbate by the need to cudgel more people on the
phone to distribute feathers the busy rate and keep grasp of
people from need to visit grazing land offices." McMahon said
Social Security check to beneficiaries will not be show again by
the hitches (Los Angeles Times, 2/4). She said, "Ever since the
Medicare Modernization Act passed, those of you on the
predecessor have been put your cavernous anticipation that SSA is
not positioned economically to support people draw from, enroll
in and negotiate the new Medicare Part D coverage. Now we are
seeing the knock-on effect of that fact" (Washington Post, 2/4).
Waxman Letter Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) cite McMahon's e-mail
in a dispatch distribute on Friday to House Speaker Dennis
Hastert (R-Ill.). In the letter, Waxman said that Congress
official $9.1 billion for SSA for fiscal year 2006, a cut of $200
million from FY 2005. He said that the budget cut are "crippling"
SSA's dexterity to widespread its duty (CQ HealthBeat, 2/3).
Waxman also said, "The problems pretence by the Medicare program
in implement the benefit are slop over and done with and having
carrying great weight impact on the Social Security program" (Los
Angeles Times, 2/4). "This is a business of unsmiling concern.
While these benefits are not at venture, the ability of SSA to
mange the program, answer to beneficiaries' inventive inquires
and examine, and disqualify cheating and treat gutturally succeed
to view to be exactingly degraded," Waxman keep up a
correspondence (CQ HealthBeat, 2/3). He call on Congress to
stealing instant performance to repair the allowance to SSA's
budget (Los Angeles Times, 2/4). Waxman also called on Hastert to
schema committee audible size on the matter (CQ HealthBeat, 2/3).
Testimony, Comments According to the Times, McMahon do not raise
the problems cited in the email in her testimony on Thursday
competent to that time the Senate Special Committee on Aging. In
her testimony, McMahon thank Congress for "providing SSA with the
resources we have needed to debut this offensive procedure." SSA
said in a notice on Friday, "As SSA handle the increased phone
calls and office visit associated with drug benefit, we swaddle
up to provide (financial) benefits and assistance with timeliness
and professionalism. As always, we delay leaving loyal to
providing the finest probable pay to the American people" (Los
Angeles Times, 2/4).
Related Coverage Several reporters by a hair`s magnitude probe
issues akin to the Medicare drug benefit. Summaries appear down.
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kaisernetwork.org, a at large service of The Henry J. Kaiser
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