Yesterday, the Social Security Administration has asked for Office of Management and Budget approval to publish an interim final rule on "Waiver of recovery of certain overpayments accruing during the COVID-19 pandemic period." The text of the proposal is not available to the public at this time.
Update: Also yesterday, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee issued a press release calling on Social Security to give relief to Social Security recipients overpaid during the pandemic.
10 comments:
Should have to go through the formal waiver process. There should be no blanket waivers covering everyone who is overpaid during the pandemic. The waiver process can take into account each claimant's financial circumstances, and how COVID-19 pandemic affected them.
We should have been able to process adverse actions!
I read a draft of this proposal and it would waive overpayments which accrued after beneficiaries reported events affecting checks, because SSA did not timely process the reports. In other words, SSA dropped the ball. I agree that such overpayments should be administratively waived.
"Should have to go through the formal waive process."
"We should have been able to process adverse actions!"
Why? The field offices are closed, as are a host of other businesses, including doctors' offices and lawyers' offices. The mail is barely functioning anymore in many places. The economy is in the tank, and grocery prices are skyrocketing. And many people are at risk of serious illness or death due to a contagious airborne disease that has reached pandemic status. So from where I sit, there seem to be a huge host of good reasons for these special procedures. So, I want to know why you folks think we should be moving forward with business as usual.
The formal waiver requirements are fair. They should not be abandoned in favor of blanket waivers, COVID19 notwithstanding.
SSA will grant an overpayment waiver if
You are “without fault” in causing the overpayment. and
Making you pay it back would “defeat the purpose” of the Social Security Act OR “be against equity and good conscience.”( In other words if you can afford to pay it back you should.)
While some have suffered financially during COVID19, many have not. Some are actually better off financially. Someone who has hundreds of thousands in the bank, should have to repay their overpayment,, no matter whose fault it was.
The taxpayers should not have to bear the burden of blanket waivers of overpayment.
"Some are actually better off financially. Someone who has hundreds of thousands in the bank, should have to repay their overpayment,, no matter whose fault it was."
Oh, so we should waste thousands of hours of staff time processing formal waivers because the blanket waiver is too generous for all one or two disability recipients who fit these criteria? Yeah, that makes sense.
If you think istituting a "blanket waiver" is going to save thousands of hours...think again. The "blanket waiver" sounds nice but the gaency will find a way to make the process agonizing of rthe field offices to institute.
@10:53
Against equity and good conscience is expressly not equivalent to, if the recipient can pay it back they should. POMS GN 02250.150 specifically says "A beneficiary’s financial circumstances are not material when we determine if it is against equity and good conscience for us to recover an overpayment." As a rule, I agree with you that the ability to repay should be considered, maybe even determinative, but it is not. Against equity and good conscience is if the recipient relinquished a valuable right or changed his or her position for the worse in relying on the improperly released benefits.
As to whether a blanket overpayment waiver is appropriate due to COVID-19, possibly, if the intent is to have a stimulative effect. But that's at the expense of the trust funds. A better solution is to just provide direct stimulus checks. Alternatively, SSA could do a blanket waiver, and Congress could authorize reimbursement of the trust funds from the general treasury funds. That way, recipients (who for the most part aren't in great financial situations) wouldn't be faced with the economic hardship of having to repay the overpayment, and also the trust funds would not be harmed.
"Defeat the purpose" means "if recovery would deprive the person of income required for ordinary and necessary living expenses". Procedure for this is in POMS GN 02250.100. "Consider a person's financial situation...when deciding defeat the purpose.
Therefore for a formal waiver request, a person's ability to repay is a determining factor in the decision on whether the waiver request is denied or approved. I have seen many cases where the claimant was not at fault, but their waiver was denied because they could afford to repay.
And this is as it should be. Granting blanket waivers due to COVID would not help the trust fund, Any savings in administrative costs due to not having to process formal waiver requests, would be a fraction of the amount that would be lost due to the waived overpayments.
Wow! That’s fair and equitable treatment of claimant’s facing overpayment liability. Why is COVID an exception when non COVID overpayments are not. What happened to due process? I know it never existed in the Agency, more likely management doesn’t know what due process is.
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