UPDATE: Maine's newborns get a reprieve
Were they targets of Trump's political revenge?
By Mike Sorrell
Parents of newborn babies in Maine were told this past week they would have to go to one of eight Social Security Administration offices in the state to get their wee one a Social Security number.
People throughout Maine threw a collective fit.
The policy lasted one day before it was rescinded by Social Security Administrator Leland Dudek, an appointee of President Donald Trump.
The reason for Wednesday’s dictatorial change – put forth only in Maine -- was as foggy as a coastal town at sunrise. Then, Los Angeles Times reporter Michael Hiltzak talked to people in Maine.
Many surmised that parents and their newborn babies were jerked around because, on Feb. 21, Maine’s Democratic Gov. Janet Mills informed the Trump administration that Maine does not intend to follow one of Trump’s orders regarding transgender athletes. “See you in court,” she said to Trump.
Nancy Altman, executive director of Social Security Works, an advocacy organization, said, “The only explanation is political revenge against Maine Gov. Janet Mills.”
Dudek neither confirmed nor denied that assertion. He simply apologized and acknowledged the brief policy made no sense for several reasons, including the fact that parents would be burdened and that newborn babies would be exposed to germs while waiting in a Social Security office.
Parents of newborns can resume attaining a Social Security number by checking a box on a form at the hospital the day a child is born. That’s the way it has been done for decades in all 50 states.
No comment from Trump the manchild.
The original column by Mike Sorrell, “Get the kid, Honey, we’re going for a ride,” published March 7 at Fight the Fire:
Big Brother – aka the Trump administration – now forces parents of newborn babies in Maine to show up in person at a Social Security Administration office to get a Social Security number for their child.
Whether the newborn must tag along as proof of their existence is not clear in the email notification sent out Wednesday.
In any case, welcome, kid, to the brave new world of Donald Trump. Zip up your snowsuit, you are going for a ride with mommy and daddy to check in with the government.
“Previously, when a child was born, the parents were given forms to acquire both birth certificates and Social Security numbers right at the hospital where the birth took place. Hospital workers would input the information into a statewide database and both birth certificate and Social Security number would be forthcoming,” Mark LaFlamme of the Lewiston Sun Journal reported Thursday.
The Portland Press Herald’s Joe Lawlor wrote, “It was not clear Thursday whether this is a nationwide change, unique to Maine, or if it is a change being piloted in Maine that would expand to other parts of the country.”
The Maine Department of Health and Human Services sent the email Wednesday to notify “birth certifiers” that “effective immediately, the option for parents to participate” in the hospital registration process is “suspended.”
Pediatricians were the first to squeal. They say the new process is “burdensome, unnecessary and unfair,” Lawlor wrote.
“It makes absolutely no sense to me at all to do this,” said Dr. Joe Anderson, advocacy chair of the Maine chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “I see no logical explanation for forcing parents and newborns — with 11,000 babies born in Maine every year — to sit in a crowded waiting room, when we have done this easily, securely and efficiently for decades.”
As Anderson alluded, there are germs to worry about while waiting for an hour or two at a Social Security office — even if Elon Musk and one of his fuzzy-cheeked band of dweebs has not yet cut the staff and lengthened wait times.
Parents, along with maybe the newborn, will have to travel to Portland, Bangor, Augusta, Auburn, Presque Isle, Rockland, Saco and Waterville. Those are the only Social Security offices (for now) in the very large and mostly rural state of Maine.
A comment by reader “bwhite” was tacked onto the Press-Herald story (one of 156 comments as of 6 a.m. Friday). He said his wife gave birth to a son Wednesday and she was told of the new Social Security registration process. He sought more clarity.
“I called the national SSA office and, fun fact, they automatically hang up on you if wait times are 120 minutes and suggest you call back at the end of the month when wait times are typically shorter.
“I then called the Bangor SSA field office which had no knowledge of this change, and told me they’d research and call me back, which they never did. They did tell me all the information I’d need to bring to get an SSN for my child, such as proof of his citizenship like his medical records etc.”
The father of the newborn worries about other parents and their babies.
“I can only imagine how many parents will just give up until months or years down the road [when] the child will not have an SSN and will likely be the one to suffer consequence from our government making what was a seamless process exponentially more difficult and frustrating.”
By then, of course, the government might have more beds at Guantanamo.
I was a victim of being held out of the system and even I know this is completely fucked up. I gained nothing from being hidden and it cost me almost everything, including my life, but there's NO reason whatsoever that people should have to take their child to Government Offices to get their SSA instead of just getting at the Hospital.
How about some fucking movement aimed toward not allowing Parents to hide their children away in Rural communities as Sex Slaves? How about making Doctors obligated to report births? How about
By 1933, all states were part of the national birth registration system, an attempt to ensure that every live birth was reported to local and state health departments and yet I, having been born more than 50 years after that was still casually kept out from society, education and community.
And now Trump is trying to take away to systems that are restoring me to dignity.