Everyone who is up-to-date with Social Security news knows that the administration is in dire financial straits. Various government parties have been looking for ways to address the financial issues that the Social Security Administration is facing. Unfortunately, many of the proposed solutions have fallen short. The latest effort to cut Social Security by $750 million is no exception to this rule. Not only does it seem that this proposal will not address the financial issues the administration is facing, but may actually end up costing the Social Security Administration $6 billion.
How is it that a Republican effort to cut Social Security costs by $750 million could end up costing the SSA $6 billion in the long-run? It seems that this push to cut costs is aimed at reducing the integrity efforts that the SSA takes to ensure that disability benefits are properly distributed and that fraud is minimized. This reduction in the SSA’s integrity efforts could indeed end up costing $6 billion in increased fraud and waste, or so says the independent official who monitors the program.
The funding that is being cut will directly affect the redeterminations and continuing disability reviews that are conducted by the Social Security Administration. With cuts to continuing disability reviews and redeterminations of denied disability claims, chances are that more benefits will be paid out and those who are not actually entitled to Social Security Disability benefits may begin receiving them. While this budget cut may save $750 million in reduced program costs, it could end up costing between $5 and $6 billion in Social Security Disability benefits that would not be paid out if this program were left intact.
What has so many taxpayers and opposing politicians frustrated with this whole situation is that the Republicans have consistently alleged that the Social Security system has an increasing number of fraudulent disability claimants receiving Social Security Disability benefits. If the Republicans truly believe that fraud is a problem within the Social Security system, then why would they cut funding to the program that is designed to detect and prevent such fraud? Especially when the budget cut could end up costing the SSA billions of dollars?
Will this proposed budget cut actually be passed? That remains yet to be seen. Hopefully common sense and basic mathematics will prevent the bill from passing and causing further financial damage to a program that is already in serious financial trouble. While the intentions of this budget cut may be good, there is a saying about good intentions and where the road that they are paved to leads.
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