A year ago, the fresh head of social insurance decided to stop the agency destructive financially Many people who were to aid.
The agency has long made the practice of limiting or stopping the control of benefits to recover billions of dollars in payments that they sent to the recipients, but later stated that they should never receive.
Martin O’Malley, then the Commissioner for Social Security Administration, Announced in March 2024. The agency would no longer cut off monthly, survivors and disabled people to recover money that was allegedly overpaid-a manner, which he called “Cruelness in Clawback. “Instead, by default, 10% of monthly benefits would stop. The fresh policy has allowed people who are already dead to pay rent and keeping food on the table.
Last Friday, Trump’s administration reversed this policy.
From March 27, in order to recover a fresh overpayment, the social insurance administration will automatically suspend 100% of the recipient’s monthly benefits, The agency announced.
The agency stated that it is in the interest of fiscal responsibility and that the reversal would save the government about $ 7 billion in a decade.
“Our duty is to revise the overpayment repayment policy back to full suspension, just like during the Obama administration and the first Trump administration, to properly secure taxpayers’ funds,” said Commissioner Lee Dudek in a press release.
Supporters of social insurance beneficiaries described this action as cruel and harmful.
“The results are predictable: more unnecessary suffering,” said Kathleen Romig, who worked in social security administration under O’Malley and is currently the director of social security and disability in disabled policy in Budget and Politics Priority Center.
Kate Lang from the spokeswoman Justice in aging She said she was broken.
“Those who are most exposed, with the least number of resources, are those who feel the harsh effects of this change,” she said. Many “will not be able to buy food or keep the roof over their heads,” she said.
In 2023 after investigation Author: KFF Health News and Cox Media Group shed featherlight on overpayment and claws, legislators from both parties called on the administration of social security to change their approach.
Changing politics a year ago was partly inspired by the arduous situation of people such as Denise Woods, which was Sleeping in her Chevy In Savannah, Georgia, in December 2023 during the fight against lupus and stoneware heart failure after cutting off disabled benefits. The government demanded that it pay almost USD 58,000.
Many overpayment is the result of a government error. Government years may last so that it determines that he pays someone too much, and by that time the amount that according to the government is guilty can significantly exceed the beneficiary’s ability to be repaid. And he often demanded recipients to pay the full amount within 30 days.
According to SSA data, which SSA provided last autumn, the SSA suspended at least some of the monthly payments of benefits from hundreds of thousands of people. The agency stated that he abstained to 10% of 669 903 people to recover overpayment. Asked if these numbers included all types of benefits managed by the SSA, the agency’s press office did not say.
“Under the leadership of Trump, social insurance restored the cruel policy of the clarification of the overpayment of social security, regardless of the Americans’ ability to pay or whether the overpayment was a mistake by the agency,” said Senator Ron Wydni Przegodn with Oregon, the highest democrat in the Senate Financial Committee.
A fresh plan for completely suspending monthly benefits from recipients who were allegedly overpayed does not include an additional security program, one of two social insurance programs for the disabled. SSI, As the agency explainsIt includes “disabled people and older adults who have low income or resources.”
The estimated government that completely cutting off people will save $ 7 billion in a decade means that they expect many other overpayments in the coming years.
The announcement of the SSA of March 7 was part of a broader dismantling of politicians from the time of Biden under the command of President Donald Trump. It was also part of a wider shock in the social insurance administration, which announced in February that it would be so staff from around 57,000 to 50,000.
On Monday, O’Malley predicted that the society would experience much longer waiting times, trying to reach the agency by phone and wait longer to find disability.
He said that social insurance works on a very aged computer system and driving people out of agencies who understand this, “can only result in the collapse of the system.”
“The risk of completely closing the agency is significantly increased by people who do not know what they are doing,” said O’Malley.
Last week, PBS Newshour advised the recipients to save money to prepare for the break from benefits.
Deputy Trump Elon Musk boasted of receiving He saw Chain to the federal government and called social insurance a Ponzi diagram. IN Signed declaration filed in the federal court Last week, the recently retired SSA official, Tiffany Flick, said that “she was a witness to disregarding critical processes” as Doge members – the Department of Government Efficiency, which Trump established on executive order – he required access to sensitive social security systems, including files containing banking information.
The fresh management in the SSA called his working force “bloated. “But under the previous administration, the agency told a completely different story.
A year ago O’Malley told the legislators This when the number of people receiving benefits increased, “historical underfunding and understatement” in the agency created the “crisis of providing services”.
At the end of last year, the agency transferred KFF Health News to show that in September its working strength was almost 50 years. From last month, candidates for disabled benefits have been waiting on average over seven months for a decision, in accordance with SSA website.
Employee cuts will lead to a greater overpayment than ever and will make it arduous for people who are explained by the explanation of mistakes, said Jen Burdick, a lawyer at the Legal Services in Philadelphia.
As KFF Health News and Cox Media Group revealed in 2023About 2 million people a year received notifications from the SSA that they were overpaid and owed the money.
The agency said that people can appeal against overpayments, ask for a lower deduction rate or ask the SSA to completely waive the collection. He said that the SSA does not strive to recover when there is an initial appeal or release in progress.
Shortly before O’Malley he left the SSA in November, the agency implemented changes that made it easier for beneficiaries to repeal overpayment. Agency Written in the area In order to determine the beneficiary, he was not guilty – for example, if the agency still issued an overpayment after the beneficiary reported a change in financial circumstances, which should have reduced benefits. Politics changes remain intact.
Several Republicans who expressed concern with claws as a result of the relationship of 2023 did not answer inquiries about this article or refused to comment. One of them was Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Who is currently the chairman of the Special Senate of the Dogar Committee.
“Hard -working American taxpayers pay throughout their lives in social insurance so that they can rely on him when they need him the most,” said Scott in 2023 A letter to the agency. “The fact that the SSA actions leave some of them worse, without their own fault, is absolutely unacceptable.”
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