fits and would not be liable for a payback penalty if the decision would ultimately be unfavorable to him.

I would also recommend that an amendment be made to the basic form of the law to stipulate a clear determination process of those who do not have disability insurance. At the present time, the 6-month delay in receiving disability payments is predicated on the fact that most people employed full time have some disability insurance as part of their health and welfare benefits.

Mr. BURKE. I will have to interrupt you, Congressman. The second bells have rung, and we just have time to make it. We will recess and return.

[A recess was taken.]

Mr. BURKE. The committee will come to order.

We recognize Congressman Heinz.

Mr. HEINZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

There should be a section of the application which, in effect, states that: "I do not have disability insurance, and so I wish to receive it on determination of my eligibility."

There is also great need to give claimants as well as local Social Security personnel, instructions and education on what the process entails, and what must be done to gain a decision. We need more informed persons at the local level to give total and complete guidance to the applicant.

Mr. Chairman, I can't emphasize this point too strongly, because time after time and in many individual discussions I had with people who work in the three Social Security offices in my district, too often the question is one not so much of the motivation, but of insufficient experience and training and education of the people who work in those departments.

There are no such specialists in the local Social Security office in my district on the frontline at the present line. Many claims, including SSI, are taken by personnel insufficiently briefed on special provisions and efficient disposition of cases. I know of cases where trainees have made final determinations.

There seem to be a persistent infatuation with lengthy forms on the part of SSA. With the hundreds of management consultants and experts in the field available to the Social Security Administration, why can't a process be devised which will reduce the number of forms involved in the appeals process? I don't know whether one should go as far as to suggest that when a client applies for disability, one person should make the determination of the case on the spot on the basis of presented evidence, but I do know that there are profound lags in processing claims to decision at the State, regional, and national levels which must be rectified.

We have reached the point where one of my constituents, a bedridden woman receiving disability, who had her check stolen, rented an ambulance to take her to a notary to sign an affidavit to the effect that she is, in fact, bedridden, and then proceeded on a stretcher to the Social Security office to present this affidavit.

This woman needed quick replacement of her check with consideration for her disability without engaging in this tour de force to gain action.

In summary, this is a problem which begins when the original disability claim is made, and continues to the point where substantial financial penalties are incurred by people who are entitled to benefits, but who do not receive them because of the inadequacies of the system. The solution is not merely more personnel and more appeals judges. It also lies in simplifying the system and allowing many prima facie appeals cases to be decided swiftly without imposition of extensive processing and handling that confuses the processor as well as the client.

Mr. Cardwell says his recommendations are aimed at reducing the backlog of appeals cases. I believe that the result of much of what he suggests would be to deny hundreds of thousands of genuinely eligible needy people social security benefits they have paid for and are entitled to.

I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me time to present this case and my recommendations.

Mr. BURKE. Thank you, Congressman Heinz. Are there any questions by members of the committee?

Mr. Pickle?

Mr. PICKLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I take it, Congressman Heinz, that you differ with Commissioner Cardwell in the general approach.

Mr. HEINZ. That is correct.

Mr. PICKLE. Mr. Jones had asked earlier if we could cut through our bottleneck by upgrading the level of the examiners or lowering the ALJ's, either way. What would be your specific recommendation in that regard?

Mr. HEINZ. I have suggested an approach that is quite different from that; namely, that we should try and make people at lower levels in the social security administration process responsible for making earlier and faster determinations, that they should be trained better, that there, in fact, should be people who have training responsibilities in local Social Security offices.

In my district in downtown Pittsburgh, a very large Social Security office, as of today there is not one person so assigned. So my emphasis would be on trying to make earlier and faster decisions, presumably stipulating that an individual who makes those decisions is, in fact, responsible for making those decisions.

I think one of the things that has to be clear from the case of Mr. S. is that no one is in this whole system really accountable for making those determinations and decisions that really count. I think we should try and establish accountability at a local level.

Mr. PICKLE. The district and/or State office, or both?

Mr. HEINZ. I would like to see it at the district Social Security offices. We pay a reasonable salary to many of those people. I think if they had the proper training, they would be competent to make those decisions.

Mr. PICKLE. You may be right. I don't think any of us would quarrel that a better answer might be in improving the personnel at the local level.

The big delay has been at the appeals area. Once it gets into that appeals process, it seems like it stretches out interminably. Perhaps if we had better personnel in the beginning, we could alleviate that.

Mr. HEINZ. That is the thrust of my sentiment. I think too many things go on to the appeals process that really don't have any need in the first place to go there. I might only add that one of the things that concerns me about a government when it gets into a fiscal bindas I think we all recognize we are in with a lot of spending and not so much in the way of revenues as we would like to see-is that the first instinct of government seems to be to put on administrative controls as a way of cutting down on government expenditures.

Oftentimes those administrative controls not only are very unfair, but they result in enormous bureaucratic costs. I am sure in the case of Mr. S. that the costs of all the phone calls by my office, by the Social Security offices back and forth, by his calls, is an enormous cost that seems to be in terms of the cost of actually paying off on a case, in terms of the disability payment, it seems at first glance to be worth it to some administrator down here. But in fact, the judgment as a whole may not be, in reality, the cost-benefit ration that it appears to be.

Mr. PICKLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BURKE. Thank you, Congressman Heinz. We appreciate your presentation of cases which amplified what the problem is.

Mr. HEINZ. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for this opportunity to be here.

Mr. BURKE. Our next witness is Congressman John F. Seiberling of the State of Ohio.

We welcome you, Congressman Seiberling.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN F. SEIBERLING, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OHIO

Mr. SEIBERLING. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I am grateful to have this chance to testify as you examine the inordinate delays in Social Security hearing decisions and as you consider possible solutions to this crisis.

I know it isn't necessary to tell this subcommittee how serious the hearing backlog problem is today. It is surprising that the statistics included in the background material published by the subcommittee for these hearings have not made headlines in newspapers across the country. They reveal a scandalous situation where thousands of deserving individuals are forced to wait years for their social security disability insurance benefits.

Figures show that nationally, one-half of all disability claimants wait more than 224 days from the time they request a hearing until a decision is issued. However, in certain parts of the country delays are much longer.

In the Cleveland hearing office, where my constituents' cases are heard, hearing dates are now being assigned for claimants who requested them over a year ago. Furthermore, even if a favorable hearing decision is issued, in many cases a claimant may wait 2 or 3 months before any benefits are actually paid.

As this subcommittee also knows, the present hearing crisis did not develop overnight. Since I have been in Congress, I have received more complaints about long delays in claim processing in the disability insurance program than about any other Federal program.

I might say that I have the equivalent of one full-time caseworker who does nothing but work on social security cases alone. I am sure many of you have the same backlog.

On numerous occasions over the past 4 years, I have brought my concerns to the attention of Social Security officials, and I have consistently received empty assurances that they were doing everything possible to reduce the backlogs.

As the "Committee Staff Report on the Disability Insurance Program" documents, Social Security has paid little attention in the past to reports and recommendations of the Ways and Means Committee and of the General Accounting Office with respect to improvements in their claim processing operations. An atmosphere of bureaucratic. inertia, pervasive in the higher ranks of the Social Security Administration, has prevented any major changes in operations which would improve the situation. I have been dismayed by the lack of any deep concern for the plight of the benefit recipients and claimants shown by social security officials in my contacts with them.

I don't intend to imply criticism of individual officials or administrative judges. Many of them are operating without adequate supporting personnel, and they are operating in a system that itself is a model of inefficiency and archaic procedures.

The victims of this Social Security maladministration are many thousands of disabled workers who may use up all their savings, lose their homes, and end up on welfare while they wait for decisions on their claims.

Clearly, Congress cannot continue to rely on the Social Security Administration's promise that tomorrow will bring reform. It is time for Congress to take action to require the Social Security Administration to live up to the intent of the diability insurance program, which is to provide timely, efficient service.

To achieve this goal, I have introduced the Social Security Rights Act of 1975 which 59 other Members have joined in cosponsoring. The bill places limitations on the amount of time the Social Security Administration can spend in processing social security benefit claims at all levels of the determination and appeals process as follows: Initial claims, 90 days; reconsideration requests, 90 days; hearing requests, 120 days; and appeals council reviews, 120 days.

The act gives claimants the right to request and to receive emergency payments within 10 days, based on their earnings records, if they have not received notification of decisions on their claims within the specified periods of time. It also establishes emergency payment procedures for recipients whose monthly benefit checks are missing and for claimants whose monthly benefits are late in starting.

Time limits on the processing of Government benefit claims is not a new concept. It has worked well under the food stamp program where applications for benefits must be reviewed and decided in 30 days and in the aid to dependent children program where the limit is 45 days. If we can justify time limits for these programs, how can we not provide the needy social security claimant with similiar rights? Census Bureau records show that approximately 25 percent of families with incomes below the poverty level are social security recipients. Most claimants have contributed regularly with every paycheck to

their social insurance and they deserve to have their cases considered promptly.

The establishment of the extensive new programs of black lung benefits and supplemental security income (SSI) imposed heavy burdens on the Bureau of Disability Insurance and the Bureau of Hearings and Appeals and caused disruptions in the normal operations of the processing of benefit claims and payments. Passage of the Social Security Rights Act or similar legislation would prevent such processing dislocations in the future in the event that these agencies are given the responsibility of administering a national health insurance or other new program.

In addition, the bill would extend emergency payments rights to recipients of retirement and survivors insurance. Certainly, claimants under all social security programs deserve to have their payment problems and claims resolved in a timely manner.

Understandably, the Social Security Administration, like all Government agencies, has been under heavy pressure to cut costs. Unfortunately, this has happened at the expense of their program beneficiaries. For example, in early 1973, a decision was made to reduce the number of employees to be hired to administer the new SSI program from 19,000 to 12,000. As a result, many personnel had to be diverted from the Bureau of Disability Insurance to help implement the SSI program, and the processing times for disability claims grew longer.

By improving processing operations to enable decisions on claims to be issued within the periods specified under the act, unnecessary payments to ineligible claimants would not be made. Money could also be saved by insuring that as many claims as possible are properly determined at each level so that only the most difficult borderline cases would end up going through the expensive hearing procedures. Legislation requiring faster claim processing will eventually save taxpayers money. Perhaps the committee can come up with proposals to write into law provisions to protect against people who drag their feet in supplying information where the delay is the fault of the claimants. Mr. Chairman, on September 19 Commissioner Cardwell outlined the measures the Social Security Administration is taking to solve the hearing crisis. These measures include increasing administrative law judge productivity and reducing a number of cases which reach the hearing level. The hiring of more administrative law judges has also been discussed. I support these measures.

However, in his remarks before this subcommittee on September 19, Mr. Robert Trachtenberg, Director of the Bureau of Hearings and Appeals, projected that even with the implementation of these measures the current backlog of 107,000 hearing cases can only be reduced to some 80,000 cases by June, 1976.

Mr. Chairman, I agree with you that the severity of the situation. calls for more extreme and immediate steps to reduce the backlog to an acceptable level at the earliest possible date. I believe that the enactment of the Social Security Rights Act or similar legislation would bring about the kind of changes needed to reduce the backlog substantially.

I might say that I have read the statement of Mr. Ralph Abascal, deputy director of California rural legal assistance, given to this