Letter to the Commissioner

27 May 2024 | Larry Kotlikoff, What's New

Social Security’s new Commissioner, Martin O’Malley, appears to be just what the doctor ordered for ending Social Security’s clawback abuses. Terry Savage and I discussed the terrible problem with Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes on November 5th. The same day we published a book describing not just Social Security’s decades long practice of sending clawback notices demanding immediate repayment of what it states, but rarely documents, are years, if not decades of overpayments. The book also warns readers about the systematic financial scams the Agency, itself, is running and how to avoid them. Scams is a very strong word. We don’t use it lightly.

Commissioner O’Malley, former Governor of Maryland, is as outraged as anyone about the system’s unconscionable clawback practices.He has placed ending the abuse at the top of his priorities. He’s also taken steps to change the Agency’s culture and limit seizure of benefits to a maximum of 90 percent.

But, as the Commissioner well knows, ending clawback abuse will require additional policies — policies the Commissioner is now formulating with the input of top Agency staff, members of Congress, and Secretary of Treasury, Janet Yellen, who is Social Security’s Chief Trustee. The following open letter to the Commissioner outlines the additional changes we feel are essential. We hope they will assist the Commissioner and others advising the Commissioner in deciding how best to permanently resolve Social Security’s horrific clawback abuse.

 


 

 

Read the original letter on Kotlikoff’s Substack.

 

 

John C. Goodman is President of the Goodman Institute and Senior Fellow at The Independent Institute. His books include the soon-to-be-published updated edition of Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis, the widely acclaimed A Better Choice: Healthcare Solutions for America, and New Way to Care: Social Protections that Put Families First. The Wall Street Journal and National Journal, among other media, have called him the “Father of Health Savings Accounts.”

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