Overpayment Waiver Study

Social Security's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has done a study of decisions on waivers of overpayments and has decided that SSA is granting too many waivers. The problem with the study is that while OIG gives details on how it selected cases to review, no details are given on how OIG decided that the incorrecte decisions were made. It is unclear whether OIG personnel doing the study had enough knowledge and experience to second guess anyone on waivers or whether OIG was willing to acknowledge that some cases were close calls in which it would be inappropriate to say a mistake was made even if someone working in OIG would have made a different decision. The study does not mention the bias problem inherent in having personnel at OIG decide whether other SSA personnel have erred, when the jobs of the OIG personnel are justified by finding "mistakes" made by other components of SSA.