New Year, Same Goals

As we enter 2022, the second session of the 117^th Congress is beginning.  While much of Washington, DC is still focused on the pandemic and continuing efforts to reach a deal on President Biden’s Build Back Better legislation, NOSSCR remains focused on its top two priorities: raising the fee cap for Social Security disability representatives and eliminating the 5-month and 24-month waiting periods for disability benefits and Medicare respectively.

These priorities were set one year ago at the start of the 117^th Congress, when we developed our two-year strategic plan. While we have made minor adjustments to reflect new opportunities, the plan’s core remains unchanged. As is the case in all our work, the plan supports our core advocacy goals:

1. Protect the Social Security disability programs from changes that adversely impact claimants and their families, impede access to representation, or impact the ability of applicants to get a fair and impartial hearing.
2. Advocate for improvements in the Social Security disability programs, the application and appeal process and to advocate for SSA to reach fair and accurate disability decisions in a timely manner.
3. Advocate for measures to ensure that representatives receive fair compensation such that a Social Security Disability practice remains viable.

While raising the fee cap and ending the waiting periods remain our top priorities, a potential path has emerged on other legislation of interest to NOSSCR. The Work Without Worry Act is legislation that would ensure disabled adult children (DAC) would be able to work without the risk of losing their DAC benefits. This legislation has strong bipartisan and bi-cameral support, giving it a potential path to enactment. NOSSCR is also looking towards potential opportunities to insert provisions of the SSI Restoration Act, legislation that would make needed updates and inflation adjustments to the SSI program, into other pieces of legislation that may be moving forward.

Some of our other priorities include supporting the Social Security 2100 Act, restoring administrative law judges (ALJs) to the competitive service, and the ABLE Age Adjustment Act.

The fact that we have the same goals in the new year is a point of pride for us; despite inhabiting a fast-paced world, we remain firm in our commitment to our goals and values over months and years of hard work. We hope you will join our efforts.

NOSSCR will keep members informed of any developments and share ways to advocate with us throughout the year. If you’re not yet a member, click here to join today!