After years of sending referrals to OIG and having none get any further, it was clear the OIG was more than willing to live with a good amount of fraud. Interestingly, they push a zero tolerance fraud and mistakes by SSA staff, but are content to leaving almost all fraud referrals in the trash and cherry picking ones that look good in print.
We make claimants prove their disability claims. It's fair to make people who want to suggest that there's lots of fraud prove that too before making any big changes. So far nobody's proved it. 66 Million beneficiaries and only 437 convictions. That's a tiny fraction of a percent. All I hear from those claiming that fraud is a big problem is speculation and opinion unsupported by proof. Basing policy on unsupported speculation and opinion is stupid.
If the claimants are not already receiving benefits, the referrals are not even looked at. The CDI units are barely even staffed and have little to no local law enforcement cooperation, so that is a dead end. Let SSA look at Facebook and check criminal records before they get on benefits - that would be good money spent.
What an absurd and misleading post title. Over a 6-month period, there were 68k complaints, not on the 66 million people on benefits, but on people reported by SSA employees and others during that period of time. They investigated about 5% of those reported, and based on those 3700 investigations, they yielded over $200 million in either penalties/restitution or savings in not paying future awards.
If we're going to bastardize statistics and the report, let's do it the other way. If all 66 million people were reviewed and OIG decided to investigate about 3.5 million of them (a similar proportion to this 6-month period of time), then clearly that would yield $213 billion in penalties/restitution/saved benefits. Fraud is rampant! Why are we not investigating every recipient???????
Why are we not investigating the millions of dollars of misuse of taxpayer funds caused by Administrative/Upper Management, e.g., see comment number 12 @ 3:29PM in thread immediately above this concerning the relocation of an entire Hearings Office solely to placate a former ROCALJ removed from his position for wrongdoing? We're talking millions of taxpayers dollars in this one situation alone, which everyone seems to be pushing under the rug and trying to ignore. What about this?
@4:56 You are not making sense. Yes it was about 68K complaints from a pool of over 66 million beneficiaries. It's only speculation to guess why OIG did not pursue many. Perhaps because so many they lacked merit on their face? Perhaps anything, I don't know and neither do you. I've seen some complaints in files. Most were obviously ridiculous. Angry ex girl/boyfriends trying to get back at a claimant by any means possible. Somebody who thought it was fraud just because they saw someone carrying a bag of groceries from their car to their front door, not realizing it was a mental impairment. I could go on and on. Allegations and complaints are often wrong. You can only rely on convictions and admissions as actual proof of fraud, so no, there is no proof fraud is rampant.
I have sent some obvious fraud referrals to OIG. Not enough money involved (say only $10K) or claimant too old to prosecute. Usually it involves SSI claimants that lived with a spouse that would have made them ineligible but they did not report it. One I saw, the person claimed it was her brother. They shared last names but not last names at birth and not either parent.
Sounds like an expensive sound byte. Good job Congress. And I bet if you fully funded SSA there'd be even less due to built-in safeguards.
ReplyDeleteVery misleading. If the monetary amount isn't sufficient, it's no pursued for prosecution.
ReplyDeleteAccurate? That depends on your definition of fraud. SSA has something called "similar fault". That gets them out of using the term "fraud".
After years of sending referrals to OIG and having none get any further, it was clear the OIG was more than willing to live with a good amount of fraud. Interestingly, they push a zero tolerance fraud and mistakes by SSA staff, but are content to leaving almost all fraud referrals in the trash and cherry picking ones that look good in print.
ReplyDeleteWe make claimants prove their disability claims. It's fair to make people who want to suggest that there's lots of fraud prove that too before making any big changes. So far nobody's proved it. 66 Million beneficiaries and only 437 convictions. That's a tiny fraction of a percent. All I hear from those claiming that fraud is a big problem is speculation and opinion unsupported by proof. Basing policy on unsupported speculation and opinion is stupid.
ReplyDeleteOIG makes no attempt to pursue 99% of fraud cases . They are a flat out joke
ReplyDeleteIf the claimants are not already receiving benefits, the referrals are not even looked at. The CDI units are barely even staffed and have little to no local law enforcement cooperation, so that is a dead end. Let SSA look at Facebook and check criminal records before they get on benefits - that would be good money spent.
ReplyDeleteWhat an absurd and misleading post title. Over a 6-month period, there were 68k complaints, not on the 66 million people on benefits, but on people reported by SSA employees and others during that period of time. They investigated about 5% of those reported, and based on those 3700 investigations, they yielded over $200 million in either penalties/restitution or savings in not paying future awards.
ReplyDeleteIf we're going to bastardize statistics and the report, let's do it the other way. If all 66 million people were reviewed and OIG decided to investigate about 3.5 million of them (a similar proportion to this 6-month period of time), then clearly that would yield $213 billion in penalties/restitution/saved benefits. Fraud is rampant! Why are we not investigating every recipient???????
Aren't you "investigating" the recipient when they apply and when they go through the reviews?
Delete@4:56PM:
ReplyDeleteWhy are we not investigating the millions of dollars of misuse of taxpayer funds caused by Administrative/Upper Management, e.g., see comment number 12 @ 3:29PM in thread immediately above this concerning the relocation of an entire Hearings Office solely to placate a former ROCALJ removed from his position for wrongdoing? We're talking millions of taxpayers dollars in this one situation alone, which everyone seems to be pushing under the rug and trying to ignore. What about this?
@4:56 You are not making sense. Yes it was about 68K complaints from a pool of over 66 million beneficiaries. It's only speculation to guess why OIG did not pursue many. Perhaps because so many they lacked merit on their face? Perhaps anything, I don't know and neither do you. I've seen some complaints in files. Most were obviously ridiculous. Angry ex girl/boyfriends trying to get back at a claimant by any means possible. Somebody who thought it was fraud just because they saw someone carrying a bag of groceries from their car to their front door, not realizing it was a mental impairment. I could go on and on. Allegations and complaints are often wrong. You can only rely on convictions and admissions as actual proof of fraud, so no, there is no proof fraud is rampant.
ReplyDelete5:38,
ReplyDeleteSA 27 already cracked that case. We're on to the next scandal - try to keep up.
66 million includes retirees. The number getting SSDI & SSI is around 14 million.
ReplyDeleteI have sent some obvious fraud referrals to OIG. Not enough money involved (say only $10K) or claimant too old to prosecute. Usually it involves SSI claimants that lived with a spouse that would have made them ineligible but they did not report it. One I saw, the person claimed it was her brother. They shared last names but not last names at birth and not either parent.
ReplyDelete