THE NEW YEAR BRINGS PRESIDENTIAL CHANGES TO THE SSA: PRIVATIZATION APPEARS TO BE THE PLAN

The current Commissioner of the Social Security Administration; Jo Ann B. Barnhart will be out of a job at the end of this month. The SSA under the outgoing Commissioner Barnhart since 2000 has continued to experience increasing delays in its ability to process disability claims. At the end of 2005 there were over 711,000 SSA claims waiting to be processed; the highest in US history and more than double since 2000.

In place of Ms. Barnhart, President Bush is installing Michael J. Astrue as Commissioner.

Mr. Astrue is a former corporate executive of TKT, EPIX Pharmaceuticals, and Biogen industries. Mr. Astrue also sits on the boards of ArQule, Inc., CuraGen Corporation, the Massachusetts High Technology Council, and the Kenneth B. Schwartz Center. His limited past experience with the SSA was in the late 1980’s when he acted as an associate counsel then later as a General Counsel serving George H. W. Bush. No direct experience in dealing with the in’s and outs of disability claims for social security applicants is to be noted in his background.

Other changes at the SSA are occurring as well. President Bush who has announced his plans to privatize SSA accounts in 2007 has made the following replacements to the Social Security Advisory Board:

Sylvester J. Schieber will be the Chairman of the Social Security Advisory Board. Mr. Schieber is a former Director of Benefits Consulting at Watson Wyatt Worldwide. Watson Wyatt is multibillion dollar consulting firm that serves more than 300 of the world’s largest private pensions plans. He has authored four books on retirement matters, including the “Fundamentals of Private Pensions”.

Mark J. Warshawsky will assist Mr. Schieber. Mr. Warshawsky also served as a Director at Watson Wyatt Worldwide. In March 2005 he offered a speech on “The Urgency for Social Security Reform” which highly supported the privatization of SSA accounts.