From Government Executive:
... In Australia, the government set off on a radical plan to reduce overpayment of government benefits in 2016. ...
The Australian government had been manually searching for overpayments in programs for retirees, people with disabilities and students, among others. The 2016 program used algorithms to search out overpayments and send the bills. Christened “Robodebt,” the algorithm checked each individual’s payment against the average income of people in similar circumstances. If the algorithm determined that the person was likely overpaid by the government, it generated a bill.
Robodebt allowed the government to review 20,000 cases per week, instead of the 20,000 cases per year in the manual system it replaced. Government officials no longer had to contact employers to obtain data on employment history and payroll amounts, and the government no longer had to prove an individual had been overpaid. Instead, individuals had to prove that they had received the correct amount. If individuals didn’t pay quickly, debt collectors went to work.
The government launched Robodebt fast and claimed credit for catching recipients who had benefited from mistakes in the system. But many people receiving the notices were distraught. They often had to come up with big payments in just a few weeks. Some people had to sell their cars or take out loans, which was a huge burden on some of the country’s neediest residents. Others drained their meager savings. At least three people committed suicide, a Royal Commission found in a devastating 1,000-page report.
An investigation revealed that some repayment notices were incorrect. Some simply were false. Moreover, a 2019 court challenge found that Robodebt had violated important provisions of Australian law.
In July 2023, the Royal Commission pointed to “Robodebt’s unfairness, probable illegality, and cruelty.” When problems surfaced along the way, the commission concluded, “the path taken was to double down, to go on the attack in the media against those who complained and to maintain the falsehood that in fact the system had not changed at all” from the previous system. ...
Could this happen here? To a great extent, it already is happening. Republicans, abetted by Social Security's Office of Inspector General, have long implied that all overpayments are the result of fraud and that the agency must be merciless in collecting these debts. Recently they have been blaming the agency for not creating overpayments automatically based upon data from payroll companies. Already, there is no statute of limitations, those informed of alleged overpayments are given no information about how the alleged overpayments occurred, and all benefit payments are seized until the desperate claimant asks for a repayment schedule. It's harsh by design despite the fact that the agency often has no basis in fact for asserting an overpayment and many overpayments are due to mistakes made by Social Security. The current attitude is that if the computer says there's an overpayment, there must be an overpayment. It could all get worse with artificial intelligence.
8 comments:
Someone should do a FOIA on OP training materials for ALL components.
Overpayments are a big issues, and most of them (again, most, not all) are the claimants fault. Not reporting wages/income is a big one, probably the biggest of them all. Some people claim negligence, some people do it willfully and deceitfully. The hardest part for OIG in proving fraud is “can we prove this in court,” as well as the payoff of prosecution vs the actual debt owed. I’ve seen six-figure overpayments that span YEARS where a person just worked full time and never reported anything. It should have been caught a lot sooner but for some reason it wasn’t. The rules are pretty simple, if you are overpaid and the overpayment was NOT your fault AND you can’t afford to pay it back, then it’s waived. If it was your fault, why should it be waived? If it wasn’t your fault but you have the capacity to repay it? Why should you just get to keep the free money you weren’t entitled to?
every overpayment must be appealed to a hearing at least, every single one of them. that will prevent recovery of the OP to a certain extent, but at least causes the system to slow down and explain itself.
Every single one. Ask for waiver, object to the amount, and appeal until you get a hearing.
When a rep pyyee casues an overpayment, SSA looks to the claimant/beneficiary, NOT the rep. payye for repayment. This is crazy. The claimant will probably not have the means to repay and may be without fault. The rep. payee may be guilty as sin [e.g. when failing to disclose he/she no longer has custody of the claimant]. It does the system no good to give the rep. payee a pass and extract 10% of the claimant's lifeline. And the claimant may have a good case for forgiveness.
It's not merciless to recover overpayments. The money is taxpayer money in a trust fund. There should be an effort to recover every overpayment. Some can be waived.
If a bank made a mistake in your favor would you expect to not have to repay it?
That's ridiculous. If you are overpaid and you don't disagree with the amount, the right thing to do is bypass the waiver/appeal process and enter into a repayment agreement. What you proposed would cause an even further decline in customer service. In other words, stop wasting our time just to delay the inevitable!!!
The system should be changed. Notice and an opportunity to be heard before ceasing/withholding benefits would be more in line with fairness. I'm not a Republican, but putting the blame at the feet of them is completely misguided. Democrats have the Presidency and the Senate. I also didn't see the Democrats doing anything to change this during Obama's Administration. This is a sad issue that all of congress is responsible for.
Most of OIG’s audit reports show that overpayments are caused by manual actions by agency staff, certainly not that the majority are based on fraud. What is that portion of your post based on?
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