Purple Nurple
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No increased benefits.
Battle over Mandatory (aka “Entitlement”) Spending
- Thread starter nycfan
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Bingo! And Medicaid doesn’t take your word about your economic status. They due their due diligence to make sure you are eligible. I have seen people try to lie about their economic situation to gain Medicaid eligibility, but I’ve never seen it work. Also, when a person goes into a nursing home and they are qualified under Medicaid, they still have to pay. Let’s say your grandmother qualifies for Medicaid to pay for her stay. She still has to pay some of the cost if she has any income. Let’s say she draws $1,500 per month from SS. Let’s say it will cost $6,000 a month for her to stay there. Medicaid will take about $1,300 of her monthly SS payment and offset it against the monthly nursing home cost. Medicaid will then pick up the remaining $4,700.
milom98
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I saw some shithead GOP Rep on CNN this morning saying that one way to save billions a year would be to change Medicaid recertification from once a year to every six months. He's obviously never had to get recertified/qualified or help someone get recertified.
I used to help an aunt with her yearly certification and while it was easy and not much to it, there was almost always some delay/issue because the workers doing the work to get people recertified were stretched thin and overloaded. You could just about forget about contacting someone on the phone for assistance unless you had plenty of patience and got really lucky. And way too often my aunt wouldn't even receive a notice that it was time for recertification, so if you didn't stay on top of things and know when you recertification date was, you could potentially lose your benefits and have to start the whole process over. This was in KY before they set up their KYNECT online system that made recertification easier (still some warts there). But if you didn't have a computer, scanner... or not comfortable using a computer, then it was back to snail mail recertification or phone (if you got lucky). I finally got my aunt up to speed with the computer stuff and she took over the process, so I haven't fooled with any of it for years, so it could be a better or worse overall process (I'd wager worse since cuts...).
And then you have the GOP doing everything in there power to reduce the workforce of the people hired to help with the recertification process (especially in red states). Pretty typical for the party of break it and then complete about it.
I used to help an aunt with her yearly certification and while it was easy and not much to it, there was almost always some delay/issue because the workers doing the work to get people recertified were stretched thin and overloaded. You could just about forget about contacting someone on the phone for assistance unless you had plenty of patience and got really lucky. And way too often my aunt wouldn't even receive a notice that it was time for recertification, so if you didn't stay on top of things and know when you recertification date was, you could potentially lose your benefits and have to start the whole process over. This was in KY before they set up their KYNECT online system that made recertification easier (still some warts there). But if you didn't have a computer, scanner... or not comfortable using a computer, then it was back to snail mail recertification or phone (if you got lucky). I finally got my aunt up to speed with the computer stuff and she took over the process, so I haven't fooled with any of it for years, so it could be a better or worse overall process (I'd wager worse since cuts...).
And then you have the GOP doing everything in there power to reduce the workforce of the people hired to help with the recertification process (especially in red states). Pretty typical for the party of break it and then complete about it.
gtyellowjacket
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You're of course absolutely right, but I think if you took a poll, it would be overwhelmingly favored by the baby boomers who got us in this situation who are already retired. They're going to reap the benefits of their kids and grandkids because they vote.
gtyellowjacket
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If you want to torpedo support for the most popular government program in America, a good way to do it is to favor poor people over the people that funded it.
That may not sound pretty but it's reality. Look at what's happening right now. Medicaid is the one that is realistically on the chopping block.
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Yea maybe you are correct
We need to rest our messaging on how its nice to let poor people live
gtyellowjacket
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Clever but obviously not what I meant. Social Security is a popular program because 97% of Americans participate in it and feel like they're getting their money's worth. Why would we want to start eroding support for that program which poor people benefit from more than other people?
I mean I get why. It's a way to close the funding gap but I think it's a bad idea for the long-term viability of the program. I think you can still raise the cap to a much higher number and raise benefits for people paying those payroll taxes and still come out net positive on the trust fund.
Purple Nurple
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If that math works fine, but I’m not sure there are enough people that would be affected by an unlimited cap with no new benefits to torpedo support.
gtyellowjacket
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You might be right but there are plenty of people only marginally affected by extending these tax cuts that would be pretty upset if they didn't go through. Which is of course why Republicans typically package them this way. They want as wide of a base of support as possible and if we want to keep Social Security popular, I think we should do the same thing.
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Okay
But there really is no other way other than cutting benefits People live to damn long and not enough new babies We need to increase revenue.Now the basic tax could be raised a lot I guess. I have no idea about the math on raising benefits for those making $600,000 or 4 million a year
I suppose decreasing benefits-or even eliminating them -for the top 10% (pick anothe number if you want ) would save some money
I mean if your regular retirement is $250,000 getting some of your $24,000 SS cut is not a big deal. I have a Financial Mgr SIL and he tells me for his clients that have a lot of money, for those people SS income is a"pain the ass" tax wise
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gtyellowjacket
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Well you said there's no other options and you gave a couple other options. There are even more options that you didn't touch on such as raising the retirement age.
And certainly your sister-in-law's clients may have some pain in the ass tax filing to do but I would wager very few to none of her clients turn down the money that they earned to avoid that administrative burden. And by the same token, I suspect if you tried to cut benefits for most of the upper class, they wouldn't be too happy and support for the program would decrease.
billybobblockhead
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We know of someone who buried his ex-wife on his golf course.
Truth. Same here with my mom. Passed in January of 24. The funeral home told me they would contact social security, and boy did they ever. Her January social security payment was pulled back within 5 business days of her passing. I can 100% confirm that no payments have entered that account since.
gtyellowjacket
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I found the source of the $500 billion fraud claim. It's the high end of the estimate but it does come from the general accounting office working with the office of management and budget and the office of the inspector general.
It's actually pretty interesting as it goes over how they estimated the fraud, where the fraud is coming from, and what to do to address it. They also mentioned some other sources of fraud not captured in that number like improper payment frauds mostly because some of the federal agencies are hopelessly behind in systems.
www.gao.gov
It's actually pretty interesting as it goes over how they estimated the fraud, where the fraud is coming from, and what to do to address it. They also mentioned some other sources of fraud not captured in that number like improper payment frauds mostly because some of the federal agencies are hopelessly behind in systems.
Fraud Risk Management: 2018-2022 Data Show Federal Government Loses an Estimated $233 Billion to $521 Billion Annually to Fraud, Based on Various Risk Environments
No area of the federal government is immune to fraud. We estimated that the federal government could lose between $233 billion and $521 billion...
Hell, in that time period , most of that was from Trump's mishandled Covid initiatives.I found the source of the $500 billion fraud claim. It's the high end of the estimate but it does come from the general accounting office working with the office of management and budget and the office of the inspector general.
It's actually pretty interesting as it goes over how they estimated the fraud, where the fraud is coming from, and what to do to address it. They also mentioned some other sources of fraud not captured in that number like improper payment frauds mostly because some of the federal agencies are hopelessly behind in systems.
Fraud Risk Management: 2018-2022 Data Show Federal Government Loses an Estimated $233 Billion to $521 Billion Annually to Fraud, Based on Various Risk Environments
No area of the federal government is immune to fraud. We estimated that the federal government could lose between $233 billion and $521 billion...
The Great Grift: How billions in COVID-19 relief aid was stolen or wasted
An Associated Press analysis found that fraudsters potentially stole more than $280 billion in COVID-19 relief funding; another $123 billion was wasted or misspent.
apnews.com
gtyellowjacket
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Truth. And that article reiterates the GAO's complaint about antiquated systems at various agencies that don't talk to each other.Hell, in that time period , most of that was from Trump's mishandled Covid initiatives.
The Great Grift: How billions in COVID-19 relief aid was stolen or wasted
An Associated Press analysis found that fraudsters potentially stole more than $280 billion in COVID-19 relief funding; another $123 billion was wasted or misspent.
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“… The change in the phone service comes after the Social Security Administration announced a massive restructuring last month, with plans to cut about 7,000 jobs, or 12% of its workforce, and reduce the number of regional offices to four from 10. …”Social Security Administration to cut some phone service: DOGE
Account changes must be made either online or at a field office starting March 29, according to DOGE
——
This is one of those things that makes sense if you have never tried to help anyone 75 or older do anything online. And from everything I have heard the hold time for a SSA call can sometimes be 1-3 hours anyway. But I am open to details confirming this will actually prevent fraud (a tweet is insufficient to confirm the basis for this).
But it certainly leads to questions about also closing local office in-person service centers at the same time.
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“… Since the arrival of a team from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, Social Security is in a far more precarious place than has been widely understood, according to Leland Dudek, the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration.
“I don’t want the system to collapse,” Dudek said in a closed-door meeting last week, according to a recording obtained by ProPublica.
He also said that it “would be catastrophic for the people in our country” if DOGE were to make changes at his agency that were as sweeping as those at USAID, the Treasury Department and elsewhere.
Dudek’s comments, delivered to a group of senior staff and Social Security advocates attending both in person and virtually, offer an extraordinary window into the thinking of a top agency official in the volatile early days of the second Trump administration. The Washington Post first reportedDudek’s acknowledgement that DOGE is calling the shots at Social Security and quoted several of his statements.
But the full recording reveals that he went much further, citing not only the actions being taken at the agency by the people he repeatedly called “the DOGE kids,” but also extensive input he has received from the White House itself.
When a participant in the meeting asked him why he wouldn’t more forcefully call out President Donald Trump’s continued false claims about widespread Social Security fraud as “BS,” Dudek answered, “So we published, for the record, what was actually the numbers there on our website. This is dealing with — have you ever worked with someone who’s manic-depressive?” …”