Posted on 03/08/2025 4:21:14 AM PST by Libloather
The Social Security Administration (SSA) said it is reinstating a plan to recover 100% of overpayments to beneficiaries, a policy the agency had abandoned last year after an outcry over cases in which the practice led some Americans to receive shock bills amounting to thousands of dollars.
In a statement, SSA said late Friday that it will increase the default overpayment withholding rate for Social Security recipients to 100% of a person's monthly benefit, the same level that it had in place before last year's reform. The agency is required by law to claw back overpaid benefits.
Because of public backlash over the 100% recovery policy, the agency last year had capped the withholding rate for someone who had been overpaid at 10% of the person's monthly benefit. On Friday, the SSA said it will start claiming 100% of benefit checks to cover new cases of overpayments, while the withholding rate for people with overpayments before March 27 will remain at 10%, as will the rate for overpayments for Supplemental Security Income, a program for low-income seniors and disabled Americans.
"People who are overpaid after March 27 will automatically be placed in full recovery at a rate of 100% of the Social Security payment," the agency said.
The 100% clawback policy had sparked an outcry after instances in which beneficiaries were hit with surprise bills that demanded repayment within 30 days. In some cases, the bills were for tens of thousands of dollars. If beneficiaries were unable to immediately pay the bill, the agency could dock their entire monthly Social Security payment, leaving some people financially destitute, as reported by "60 Minutes," KFF Health News and other media outlets,
In many cases, the overpayments were the fault of SSA. A 2022 report by the agency's inspector general found...
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
What about the dead people fraud?
They better put asses in jail
In many cases, the overpayments were the fault of SSA
No!!’/s
Slackers and fraudsters to jail time. Then rehire with check and balance, these days a caveman could do the checking and balancing, and also stop these lingering computer entries from voting?
I’m pretty sure the Medicare healthcare providers already have dibs on your money.
How does this happen? Also, the illegals and relatives who come here and work a year or so and collect SS, some even moving back to their own country.
so they’re “required by law” to claw back the money, but they just on a whim decided not to because of “outcry” from the people who were having their money clawed back?
There is a serious problem in these bureaucracies...
But whenever Trump does something out of the ordinary, even if it’s legal, they immediately run to an obama judge to thwart him.
The timing of the announcement, right after Trump takes office, shifts blame onto the new administration, even though the policy is a return to a prior practice.
Given that the SSA knew this policy would provoke outrage, and the media has amplified stories of retirees facing massive repayment demands, it appears the narrative is being shaped to maximize fear.
If this is politically motivated, it’s a classic bureaucratic tactic—using a technical policy shift to generate outrage.
Regardless of intent, the rollout of this policy is fueling public fear at a time when trust in government agencies is already low.
“How does this happen?”
That’s easy. Many elderly have a close relative or friend as co-owners on their checking account where SS is deposited. It’s a common thing as many seniors do not have the cognitive or physical skills to pay their own bills. When they pass the survivors are supposed to notify SS of their deaths. I did this for my aunt for about 10 years. When she passed away I notified SS as a part of closing out her affairs.
Fraudsters do not notify the SS. They just operate the checking account for their own benefit. SS will never know the difference.
Exactly. Names, faces. Lock them up!!!
Also the fact those before March 27 will repay at 10% and those after that date at 100%.
Insightful comment.
The Democrats and their media jackals will scream these are cuts to Social Security. This tactic has always worked in the past for them to bludgeon Republicans. We’re in a new era now, so it may not work this time.
Why is is a ‘shock bill’ when they were STEALING their DEAD PARENTS” MONEY.
However, looking at red freedom’s post above, some may not have known.
Everyone In know who has passed has had someone immediately notify SS..
My aunt even had to give an exact time of death as the SS check was issued on the day my grandmother died to ensure it was deposited while she was still alive.
We had an overdose of “circle back.” Now it’s an overdose of “clawing back.”
Effective immediately if you get overpaid they could claw back 100%. Those in the past who have been overpaid will only have the maximum of 10% taken out of their check.
When my wife passed last year, the funeral home notified SSA within 2 days, and they took appropriate action. Fraud needs to stop. America is financially broke. The politicians have raided the money from we citizens. It all needs to be exposed.
They were shocked when they got caught!
Why not hold the bureaucrats who made the over payments responsible?
We got hit with this a couple of years ago. In our case, the withholding of Social Security benefits had to do with the SSA’s announcement, with no warning, that I had underpaid on Medicare premiums, so it was going to withhold 100% of my SS benefits through March of the next year, starting immediately.
The issue had to do with my wife’s conversion, on the advice of her financial planner, of a portion of a regular IRA to a Roth IRA. This creates a one time tax event, with an adjustment not only to our income tax bracket but to my Medicare premium. (She was not yet on Medicare.) As you may know, both SS benefits and Medicare premiums are heavily means tested; these are camouflaged old age wefare programs, and we have no ownership rights.
The “rich people’s penalty box” premiums on Medicare are quite high. So: a one time IRA to Roth conversion, executed a couple of years prior, changed our adjusted gross income for income tax purposes for the year in which it was done, which triggered a 100 percent withholding of my SS benefits when the SSA’s calculations were done. This of course lags the income tax filing by a year or two because this is government and it feels entitled to recalculate things retroactively.
We are financially comfortable enough to roll with that kind of punch, but it was enough to put a dint in the cash flow, like taking your car in for routine servicing and walking out with an unexpected $2,500 repair bill. Three months in a row.
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