Senate Hearings on Disability Insurance

The Senate Finance Committee held a hearing in Washington last week on the question “Do Private Long-Term Disability Policies Provide the Protection They Promise?”


The hearing was attended by only 3 of the 23 Senators that make up the committee, a fact that was lamented by Senator Baucus (D-MT), the committee chairman, in his closing remarks.

The committee heard testimony from a vocational rehabilitation counselor, a judge from an AL district court, a prominent disability plaintiffs’ attorney, an ACLI representative and a deputy commissioner from the Social Security Administration.

The hearing was largely a forum on the extent to which there’s “something broken” with long term disability insurance and the degree to which ERISA serves to harm the interests of claimants.

Of note, one of the 3 senators attending remarked that ERISA jurisdiction does not rest with the Finance Committee and seemed more intent on discussing LTD as it pertains to the Social Security disability application process. Another senator suggested that the GAO study the 50 states to see if issues might be better addressed by alternative courses of action at the state level. Committee chairman Baucus did voice his determination to bring his findings to the Senate committee that has jurisdiction over ERISA, in the hope of fixing the perceived problem with private disability insurance.

Notwithstanding the sparse turnout by the committee membership, the hearing did represent at least another indication that the role ERISA plays in regulating employee benefit plans may yet be subject to a more searching examination in Congress.