Seniors' Bill of Rights

Floor Speech

Ms. LINDA T. SÁNCHEZ of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about an issue of concern to seniors in my district and around the country. I'm proud to support the Seniors' Bill of Rights crafted by the Democrats' Seniors Task Force, and am committed to its goals. These goals include helping seniors achieve financial security by staying in their homes, finding jobs, and receiving quality, affordable health care.

Our seniors made this country what it is today--fighting overseas for our freedom, serving as the backbone for an economic boom in the post-war years, and providing critical leadership in our communities.

Today, I want to address a fundamental flaw in the Social Security system that I want to correct in the coming weeks: Social Security disability fraud. We are all aware of the disability backlog and the steps Congress is taking to reduce it. Due to dedicated oversight and strong action since the Democrats took back the majority in Congress, the backlog is being reduced. What is less commonly known is that some disability insurers are purposely adding to this backlog.

They have forced policyholders to apply for Social Security disability benefits or else they withhold payments. They do this even when they know the person is ineligible for Social Security disability benefits.

Here is where the fraud comes in. Disability insurance pays out when you are hurt and unable to perform your job. Social Security is there when you are so hurt that you cannot perform any job.

If a neonatal nurse, for example, injures her shoulder in a car accident and can no longer pick up infants, she can no longer do her job and is eligible for temporary disability benefits from her insurer. Because this nurse is still capable of serving a full career as a nurse in a number of other settings, she is not eligible for Social Security disability.

This isn't a hypothetical situation. It is an actual case pulled from a lawsuit against one of the disability insurers that was defrauding Social Security.

The disability insurer forced the nurse to commit fraud by forcing her to apply for Social Security disability, even though they knew the full extent of her injuries still meant that she could work as a nurse in other capacities.

These insurers have access to medical records and know full well when their customers are unable to perform any job. Yet they mandate that all of their customers, even those who are only temporarily injured, apply for Social Security disability. This adds to the backlog and costs taxpayers millions of dollars, all because insurers want to delay paying legitimate claims.

My legislation would require that insurers play by the same rules that they require of individuals. If an insurer is going to mandate a policyholder apply for Social Security disability, that insurer should have to certify to the government that the claim is a legitimate, permanent claim.

This legislation will root out this practice so that bad actors won't be able to clog the system with frivolous claims. When frivolous claims are weeded out, access for legitimate applicants increases and the time to process legitimate claims decreases.

This is just one of the issues I am working on to benefit California's seniors. I look forward to working with my colleagues and passing this bill into law.

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