Testimony On Overpayments

David Rust, Social Security's Acting Deputy Commissioner for Disability and Income Security Programs, testified today before the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information and International Security of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on the subject of "preventing, detecting, and collecting improper payments." Rust's written statement is available online.

Here is a little excerpt that gives a small preview of the President's fiscal year (FY) 2009 recommended budget for Social Security:

The President's Budget for FY 2009 includes a proposal to provide SSA with funding, outside the spending caps, for program integrity activities such as CDRs and SSI redeterminations. The Budget includes a special funding mechanism that will provide $240 million for SSA's program integrity efforts, in addition to the $264 million already included in the base request, for a total of $504 million. SSA plans to process 329,000 medical CDRs and nearly 1.5 million SSI redeterminations in FY 2009. If found to be as cost-effective as SSI redeterminations, up to $40 million may be used for initiatives to improve the disability process and up to $34 million may be used to expand the Access to Financial Information project, which automates verification of SSI recipients' assets held in banks. In total, SSA estimates this program integrity funding in FY 2009 will result in over $4 billion in savings over 10 years.