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IWS Documented News Service
_______________________________
Institute for Workplace Studies                   Professor Samuel B. Bacharach
School of Industrial & Labor Relations           Director, Institute for Workplace Studies
Cornell University
16 East 34th Street, 4th floor                    Stuart Basefsky
New York, NY 10016                        Director, IWS News Bureau
________________________________________________________________________

Federal Disability Assistance: Wide Array of Programs Needs to be Examined in Light of 21st Century Challenges. GAO-05-626, June 2.
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-626
or
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05626.pdf
[full-text, 47 pages]
and
Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d05626high.pdf

[excerpt]
Results in Brief:
More than 20 federal agencies and almost 200 programs serve people with
disabilities in a multifaceted and complex manner. About half of these
programs serve only people with disabilities, while the rest serve people
both with and without disabilities. Together these programs provide a
wide range of assistance such as employment-related services, medical
care, civil protections or legal services, education, and monetary support.
Multiple agencies administer programs that provide similar types of
assistance, but these programs often serve different populations of people
with disabilities because of varying eligibility criteria. For example, the
Department of Education and the Department of Veterans Affairs have
separate programs that provide vocational rehabilitation services to
American Indians and veterans, respectively. In fiscal year 2003, over
$120 billion in federal funds were spent on programs that only serve
people with disabilities, with over 80 percent of these funds spent on
monetary support.2 Although insufficient data were available to estimate
the total additional funds spent on people with disabilities by programs
that also serve people without disabilities, this amount is significant given
that benefit payments in fiscal year 2002 for people with disabilities for
two such programs alone—Medicare and Medicaid—amounted to about
$132 billion.

The challenges cited most frequently in our recent survey of nearly 200
programs serving people with disabilities are largely consistent with
several of the key findings from our past reports that led GAO to place
federal programs supporting people with disabilities on its high-risk list.
Our past work examining the federal government’s disability programs—
particularly those administered by SSA and VA—revealed challenges these
programs face in a variety of areas including ensuring timely and
consistent processing of applications for assistance, ensuring timely
provision of services and benefits, interpreting complex eligibility
requirements, planning for growth in the demand for program benefits and
services, making beneficiaries or clients aware of program services or
benefits, and communicating and coordinating with other federal
programs serving individuals with disabilities. Our recent survey of nearly
200 programs serving people with disabilities indicates that many of these
programs face challenges similar to those we have previously identified.
For example, in responding to our survey, 54 percent of the programs that
provide medical care and 46 percent of the programs that provide
employment-related assistance reported that planning for growth in the
demand for assistance was a major or moderate challenge. In addition,
53 percent of the programs that provide monetary support to people with
disabilities reported that interpreting complex eligibility requirements was
a major or moderate challenge.

Over the past several years, GAO has identified the need to reexamine and
transform federal disability programs to better position the government to
meet the new challenges and changing expectations of the 21st century.
We have identified several key factors that are important to consider in
assessing the need for, and nature of, program transformations including
(1) program design issues, particularly those affecting individual work
incentives and supports; (2) fiscal implications of proposed program
changes, such as their affordability and effects on federal and state
spending and tax revenues; and (3) feasibility of implementing program
changes, which would include considering whether appropriate processes
and systems are in place including those related to the planning and
management of human capital and information technology. In addition to
considering these factors, it is also important that some mechanism be
established for looking across programs to assess their overall
effectiveness and integration and whether they achieve similar or
complementary goals.

_____________________________
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Stuart Basefsky                   *
Director, IWS News Bureau                *
Institute for Workplace Studies *
Cornell/ILR School                        *
16 E. 34th Street, 4th Floor             *
New York, NY 10016                        *
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