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March 10, 2007 at 03:40 PM
Michael Astrue, the new commissioner of the Social Security Administration, may meet March 22 with a small group of representatives from private industry.
One likely member of the group, Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, Washington, would like to talk about ways private insurers can work with the SSA to improve the agency’s infamously slow Social Security Disability Income program, according to Winthrop Cashdollar, executive director for disability insurance at AHIP.
Cashdollar talked about the Astrue meeting here at a disability insurance conference organized by JHA, Portland, Maine, a disability insurance consulting and reinsurance firm.
AHIP represents companies that sell disability insurance as well as those that sell medical insurance.
Some projections show that SSDI could begin spending more on benefits than it takes in as early as 2017.
AHIP believes its members could help improve the performance and finances of SSDI by contributing the kind of flexibility and expertise they now contribute to the Medicare Advantage managed care program and the Medicare Part D prescription drug program, Cashdollar said.
