Social Security Gun Ban Repealed

Posted March 10, 2017 by Premier Disability Services, LLC® In February, the House of Representatives approved its first effort of the new Congress to roll back gun regulations, voting to overturn a rule that would bar gun ownership by some individuals who have been deemed mentally impaired by the Social Security Administration.

The House voted 235-180 largely along party lines to repeal an Obama-era rule requiring the Social Security Administration to send records of some beneficiaries to the federal firearms background check system after they have been deemed mentally incapable of managing their financial affairs.

The rule, when implemented, would affect about 75,000 recipients of Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income who require a representative to manage their benefits because of a disabling mental disorder, ranging from anywhere from anxiety to schizophrenia.

Republicans argued that the rule, which was vigorously opposed by gun-rights and disability groups, would unfairly stigmatize people with disabilities and strip them of their Second Amendment rights without due process.

“This is a slap in the face for those in the disabled community because it paints all those who suffer from mental disorders with the same broad brush,” said House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. “It assumes that simply because an individual suffers from a mental condition, that individual is unfit to exercise his or her Second Amendment rights.”

Democrats agreed that the government must not stigmatize those with disabilities, but said this rule affects a small group with severe, long-term mental disorders preventing them from doing any work. Passage of the resolution puts others at risk, they said.

The regulation was repealed under the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to dismiss an outgoing administration’s recently enacted regulations. It requires only a simple majority vote in the Senate.

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/02/02/house-votes-strike-rule-banning-guns-some-deemed-mentally-impaired/97299756/

By: Joyce Trudeau of Premier Disability Services, LLC^®

March is National Kidney Month

Posted March 3, 2017 by Premier Disability Services, LLC® March is National Kidney Month, and March 9, 2017 is World Kidney Day. Kidney disease develops when kidneys lose their ability to remove waste and maintain fluid and chemical balances in the body. The severity of chronic kidney disease (CKD) depends on how well the kidneys filter waste from the blood. Because there are little to no signs of the condition, most people are not even aware that they have kidney disease until it reaches the later stages, including kidney failure.

Since there are often no symptoms of early kidney disease, laboratory tests are critical. When you get a screening, a technician will draw blood that will be tested for creatinine, a waste product. If kidney function is abnormal, creatinine levels will increase in the blood due to decreased excretion of creatinine in the urine. Your glomerular filtration rate (GFR) will then be calculated, which factors in your age, gender, creatinine, and ethnicity. Your GFR indicates your stage of chronic kidney disease and provides an evaluation of kidney function.

End stage renal disease patients have two treatment options. Dialysis is a treatment that removes wastes and excess fluid from blood when the kidneys are not able to do it on their own. Typically, it is necessary upon development of kidney failure. There are over 380,000 people in the United States who depend on hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis (PD) treatments to stay alive. The only other treatment option for people with end stage renal disease is a kidney transplant.

If you suffer from kidney disease, you may qualify for Social Security Disability benefits if you meet the criteria under one of Social Security’s listings for genitourinary disorders (6.00), or if your condition otherwise prevents you from working. Please contact us for a free evaluation of your case.

 

Adult Listing 6.00: https://www.ssa.gov/disability/professionals/bluebook/6.00-Genitourinary-Adult.htm

Source: https://www.davita.com/education/kidney-disease/risk-factors/march-is-national-kidney-month

 

By: Thomas A. Klint of Premier Disability Services, LLC^®

Federal Hiring Freeze May Worsen Disability Case Backlog

Posted February 24, 2017 by Premier Disability Services, LLC® President Donald Trump’s federal hiring freeze may exacerbate a backlog of claims for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) that has grown so large that an average case takes more than a year to be heard in front of a judge.

“These are people who are desperate,” Judge Marilyn Zahm, president of the Association of Administrative Law Judges union, said. “There may be a hiring freeze on federal employment, but there’s no freeze on people getting older, people getting sicker, people having injuries and accidents, and people needing disability insurance.”

The amount of beneficiaries in the program has grown significantly in recent years. Whereas fewer than 2.5 percent of working-age citizens received benefits in 1990, more than 5 percent did in 2015. Last year the Social Security Administration announced that it wanted to grow the ranks of judges to 1,900 by the end of fiscal year 2018 to accommodate for the increasing number of applicants.

That may be impossible now that President Trump, in one of his first executive actions, has imposed a federal civilian employee hiring freeze. President Trump’s order allows agencies to exempt staff needed for “national security or public safety responsibilities,” and also authorizes the director of the Office of Personnel Management to grant exemptions. The order further requires the Office of Management and Budget to develop a plan within 90 days for shrinking the workforce, and states that the blanket freeze will expire once that plan is implemented.

Judge Zahm said that many judges have been working extra uncompensated hours every day to try to get through the outstanding cases, some of which require reviewing over 1,000 pages of medical records as well as experts’ assessments. “This is not a job where you should be doing slapdash work,” she said. “People’s lives, livelihoods, are at stake.”

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-27/trump-freeze-seen-worsening-526-day-disability-case-backlog

By: Joyce Trudeau of Premier Disability Services, LLC^®