It's almost a loophole, Washington Free Beacon reporter Elizabeth Harrington said on Fox and Friends Saturday to discuss her story on non-English speakers being fast-tracked for federal disability approval.
“Social Security disability insurance is meant for individuals in the workforce, American citizens who are no longer able to work because of a physical or mental impairment. To become an American citizen, you have to demonstrate at least a basic knowledge of the English language, and now they’re finding in these hearings individuals applying are saying, ‘Oh, I can’t speak English’ through a translator. They don’t have to prove it, and they’re getting automatically approved.”
In the meantime the scandal of the Veteran Hospitals secret waiting lists that denied timely care to veterans and resulted in the deaths of dozens of them is erupting all over the media. But it's not something new. It's been known for some time but authorities DID NOTHING. (Read more below.)
RELATED - Secretary of Defense fast-tracks sex-change operation for Bradley Manning, accused of leaking documents to Wikileaks.
Bradley is to be temporarily transferred out of military custody in order to undergo expensive hormone therapy and surgery to become a woman. Read more - http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/05/16/Obama-s-VA-Fast-Tracks-Expensive-Sex-Change-For-Convicted-Traitor-Bradley-Manning-At-Same-Time-Vets-Die-on-Phony-Waiting-Lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Back to the disability payments report:
“Social Security disability insurance is meant for individuals in the workforce, American citizens who are no longer able to work because of a physical or mental impairment. To become an American citizen, you have to demonstrate at least a basic knowledge of the English language, and now they’re finding in these hearings individuals applying are saying, ‘Oh, I can’t speak English’ through a translator. They don’t have to prove it, and they’re getting automatically approved.”
In the meantime the scandal of the Veteran Hospitals secret waiting lists that denied timely care to veterans and resulted in the deaths of dozens of them is erupting all over the media. But it's not something new. It's been known for some time but authorities DID NOTHING. (Read more below.)
RELATED - Secretary of Defense fast-tracks sex-change operation for Bradley Manning, accused of leaking documents to Wikileaks.
Bradley is to be temporarily transferred out of military custody in order to undergo expensive hormone therapy and surgery to become a woman. Read more - http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/05/16/Obama-s-VA-Fast-Tracks-Expensive-Sex-Change-For-Convicted-Traitor-Bradley-Manning-At-Same-Time-Vets-Die-on-Phony-Waiting-Lists
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Back to the disability payments report:
Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) sent a letter obtained exclusively by the Free Beacon to Acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration Carolyn Colvin on Thursday, raising concerns regarding revelations that individuals who cannot speak English are fast-tracked for disability approval.“I write to express my concerns about the expanding number of individuals now qualified for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), and to raise a specific issue, the basis for many of these individuals’ disability classification, where the inability to speak English is a determinative factor,” Sessions said.Sessions revealed a policy for SSDI payments that allows individuals to qualify for benefits more quickly if “they are incapable of communicating in English.”The Social Security Act allows for the consideration of education when deciding if an individual is disabled. “The education factor is not limited to actual education as it relates to schooling, but includes a linguistic limitation on the ability to communicate in the English language,” Sessions said.
“It’s almost a loophole,” she said. “Social Security disability insurance is meant for individuals in the workforce, American citizens who are no longer able to work because of a physical or mental impairment. To become an American citizen, you have to demonstrate at least a basic knowledge of the English language, and now they’re finding in these hearings individuals applying are saying, ‘Oh, I can’t speak English’ through a translator. They don’t have to prove it, and they’re getting automatically approved.”
Link to above article - with video
Letter to Social Security Administration by senator Jeff Sessions mentioned above
DISABILITY ENROLLEES ROSE BY 230%
The inability to speak English is now considered a determining factor to receive federal disability benefits.
Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) sent a letter obtained exclusively by the Free Beacon to Acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration Carolyn Colvin on Thursday, raising concerns regarding revelations that individuals who cannot speak English are fast-tracked for disability approval.
“I write to express my concerns about the expanding number of individuals now qualified for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), and to raise a specific issue, the basis for many of these individuals’ disability classification, where the inability to speak English is a determinative factor,” Sessions said.
Sessions revealed a policy for SSDI payments that allows individuals to qualify for benefits more quickly if “they are incapable of communicating in English.”
The Social Security Act allows for the consideration of education when deciding if an individual is disabled. “The education factor is not limited to actual education as it relates to schooling, but includes a linguistic limitation on the ability to communicate in the English language,” Sessions said.
According to the Act, “Since the ability to speak, read and understand English is generally learned or increased at school, we may consider this an educational factor.”
Sessions said he is concerned that the administration is “misconstruing” this part of the Social Security Act, to approve disability applications solely on this factor.
In fact, former SSA judges have testified that individuals have been approved for disability without having to prove they cannot speak English.
On July 22, 2012 Administrative Law Judge Larry Butler had an “on-the-record conversation” in English with a claimant who did not have a lawyer. The individual then requested to postpone the hearing to find an attorney.
“Once the claimant found an attorney, even though he was capable of speaking English, the claimant’s lawyer demanded to have an interpreter at the hearing,” the letter said.
Sessions said there are only two questions asked at hearings, including, “Can you speak and understand English?” and “Can you read and understand English?”
“If the applicant answers ‘no’ to these questions, the [Administrative Law Judge] does not probe any further,” he said.
“It is difficult to see how someone is a U.S. citizen and incapable of speaking or reading the English language,” Sessions added. “In one case handled by Judge Butler, the claimant answered ‘no’ to both questions in a January 2012 hearing, but had been naturalized as a U.S. citizen in August 1987. As, you know, naturalization requires individuals to have a working knowledge of the English language.”
Social Security Administrative Law Judge Drew A. Swank also testified that, “there is no burden of proof placed on the individual to demonstrate an inability to communicate in English” at hearings.
In addition, the Hearings Appeal and Litigation Law Manual (HALLEX) requires that “an interpreter be provided at the request of a claimant, even if the claimant is capable of speaking English.”
“This makes it difficult for an Administrative Law Judge to adequately determine English proficiency,” Sessions said. “Once an interpreter is provided, the claimant, perhaps under instructions from his lawyer, never speaks a word of English at the hearing.”
Enrollment in SSDI, which is intended to provide income for Americans who are unable to work, has ballooned in recent years. Roughly 6.7 million individuals received benefits in 2000, a number that grew to 11 million in 2012. Approximately $175 billion worth of benefit payments were disbursed in 2011.
“The population of the United States grew by 9.7 percent between 2000 and 2010, but the number of SSDI applications grew by 230 percent,” Sessions noted.
“This is an unsustainable path,” he said. “Indeed, benefit payments are already exceeding tax revenues collected for SSDI and the trust fund is projected to reach exhaustion in as little as two years.”
In order to be eligible, an individual must not be able to do work that they did before, or “you cannot adjust to other work because of your medical condition.”
“SSDI was specifically created for those whose loss of employment was caused by injury or some other medical condition,” Sessions said. “Today, however, widespread anecdotal accounts reveal that a number of people immediately file for SSDI after being laid off or losing their job for reasons unrelated to injury or illness.”
In light of his concerns, Sessions is asking the SSA to provide a list of the total number of interpreters provided during a hearing process for disability determination in the last five years.
In addition, he asks, “what age does your agency believe an individual is incapable of learning to speak in English” and whether SSDA is limited to American citizens, and if not, “how many non-citizens are now receiving benefits?”
“Individuals who have been naturalized as U.S. citizen can and should be able to communicate in English,” Sessions said. “The Administration has an enormous responsibility to ensure that benefits are paid only to those who are truly disabled.”
Link to above article
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WAR VETERANS ARE DENIED THEIR RIGHT TO HEALTH CARE -
TOO MANY ARE DYING WITHOUT CARE FROM PHYSICAL AND MENTAL SICKNESS AND SUICIDE
THE VETERANS HOSPITALS' SECRET LISTS SCANDAL
(NaturalNews) More than three-dozen U.S. veterans died while waiting for appointments at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care system, many of whom had been placed on a secret waiting list.
According to CNN, at least 40 vets died. The news network added that the secret list was "part of an elaborate scheme designed by Veterans Affairs managers in Phoenix who were trying to hide that 1,400 to 1,600 sick veterans were forced to wait months to see a doctor, according to a recently retired top VA doctor and several high-level sources."
For half a year, the news network has been reporting that there have been extensive delays in healthcare appointments for veterans around the country, many of whom died while waiting to be seen. However, the new revelations about the Phoenix facility are some of the most disturbing and striking to be discovered thus far.
Internal emails obtained by the network appear to show that top management officials at the Phoenix VA knew about the practice and even defended it.
Dr. Sam Foote, a physician who recently retired from the VA system in Phoenix after spending 24 years there, said that the institution works off of two lists for patient appointments:
-- There is an official patient list that is shared with officials in Washington, D.C., and shows that the institution is providing timely appointments -- which Foote has called a sham list.
-- Then, there is the real list that's kept from outsiders; wait times on that list can be more than a year.
'There's no record you were ever here'
"The scheme was deliberately put in place to avoid the VA's own internal rules," Foote told CNN. "They developed the secret waiting list."
The VA requires that its hospitals provide care to patients in a timely manner -- most typically, within a couple of weeks to 30 days. But according to Foote, the scheme in Phoenix involved shredding evidence to hide the long list of vets who are waiting for appointments and care.
Officials at the institution instructed their physicians and staff not to actually make appointments within the computer system. Rather, Foote says, when a vet comes in or calls seeking an appointment, "they enter information into the computer and do a screen capture [and] hard copy printout. They then do not save what was put into the computer so there's no record that you were ever here."
He went on to say that information would be collected on the secret electronic list, then information showing when vets first began waiting for an appointment was destroyed.
'They're all frustrated. They're all upset.'
"That hard copy, if you will, that has the patient demographic information is then taken and placed onto a secret electronic waiting list, and then the data that is on that paper is shredded," Foote said.
"So the only record that you have ever been there requesting care was on that secret list," he continued. "And they wouldn't take you off that secret list until you had an appointment time that was less than 14 days so it would give the appearance that they were improving greatly the waiting times, when in fact they were not."
He estimated that the number of veterans waiting to see a provider was somewhere between 1,400 and 1,600.
"I feel very sorry for the people who work at the Phoenix VA," said Foote. "They're all frustrated. They're all upset. They all wish they could leave 'cause they know what they're doing is wrong.
"But they have families, they have mortgages and if they speak out or say anything to anybody about it, they will be fired and they know that," he added.
VA Secretary Eric Shinseki has vowed to get to the bottom of the allegations, National Public Radio reports.
"Allegations like this get my attention," the former U.S. Army general said. "If allegations are substantiated, we'll take swift and appropriate action."
The VA's budget has risen in recent years, despite cuts to other federal line items. President Obama is seeking further increases in the 2015 budget, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Link to above article
According to CNN, at least 40 vets died. The news network added that the secret list was "part of an elaborate scheme designed by Veterans Affairs managers in Phoenix who were trying to hide that 1,400 to 1,600 sick veterans were forced to wait months to see a doctor, according to a recently retired top VA doctor and several high-level sources."
For half a year, the news network has been reporting that there have been extensive delays in healthcare appointments for veterans around the country, many of whom died while waiting to be seen. However, the new revelations about the Phoenix facility are some of the most disturbing and striking to be discovered thus far.
Internal emails obtained by the network appear to show that top management officials at the Phoenix VA knew about the practice and even defended it.
Dr. Sam Foote, a physician who recently retired from the VA system in Phoenix after spending 24 years there, said that the institution works off of two lists for patient appointments:
-- There is an official patient list that is shared with officials in Washington, D.C., and shows that the institution is providing timely appointments -- which Foote has called a sham list.
-- Then, there is the real list that's kept from outsiders; wait times on that list can be more than a year.
'There's no record you were ever here'
"The scheme was deliberately put in place to avoid the VA's own internal rules," Foote told CNN. "They developed the secret waiting list."
The VA requires that its hospitals provide care to patients in a timely manner -- most typically, within a couple of weeks to 30 days. But according to Foote, the scheme in Phoenix involved shredding evidence to hide the long list of vets who are waiting for appointments and care.
Officials at the institution instructed their physicians and staff not to actually make appointments within the computer system. Rather, Foote says, when a vet comes in or calls seeking an appointment, "they enter information into the computer and do a screen capture [and] hard copy printout. They then do not save what was put into the computer so there's no record that you were ever here."
He went on to say that information would be collected on the secret electronic list, then information showing when vets first began waiting for an appointment was destroyed.
'They're all frustrated. They're all upset.'
"That hard copy, if you will, that has the patient demographic information is then taken and placed onto a secret electronic waiting list, and then the data that is on that paper is shredded," Foote said.
"So the only record that you have ever been there requesting care was on that secret list," he continued. "And they wouldn't take you off that secret list until you had an appointment time that was less than 14 days so it would give the appearance that they were improving greatly the waiting times, when in fact they were not."
He estimated that the number of veterans waiting to see a provider was somewhere between 1,400 and 1,600.
"I feel very sorry for the people who work at the Phoenix VA," said Foote. "They're all frustrated. They're all upset. They all wish they could leave 'cause they know what they're doing is wrong.
"But they have families, they have mortgages and if they speak out or say anything to anybody about it, they will be fired and they know that," he added.
VA Secretary Eric Shinseki has vowed to get to the bottom of the allegations, National Public Radio reports.
"Allegations like this get my attention," the former U.S. Army general said. "If allegations are substantiated, we'll take swift and appropriate action."
The VA's budget has risen in recent years, despite cuts to other federal line items. President Obama is seeking further increases in the 2015 budget, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Link to above article
RELATED
VA Secretary Eric Shinseki appeard before a Senate committee in Washington this week to investigate this and other cases of veterans' secret lists.
Shinseki has ordered an audit of every VA facility nationwide and similar claims of waiting-list manipulations have cropped up in other states. As the election-year talk surrounding the debate rages, here is a look at some key facts about the issue:
***********************************************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for visiting my blog. Your comments are always appreciated, but please do not include links.