Doge Wants to Crypple Social Security Phone Services

Elon Musk's SO-Alted Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) is planning to restructure the social security Administration's Phone Support Services in Move that Cound Force Millions of Seniors to Require In-Person Services From The Almedy Understaffed Agency.

According to Leaked Memo Obtained by Popular Information and Later Report by Axios, Acting Deputy SSA Commissioner Doris Diaz Proposed Additional Online Identity Verification to Social Security Claims Processing in An Effort To Clamp Down on Allged Payment Fraud. In reality, social security fraud is quite rare, affectting less than 1 percent of payments between 2015-2022. By Diaz's Own Admission, The additional Identity Verification Could Causes Incased Wait Times, and Poteninly Delay or Deny Services to Vulnerable Seniors.

In The Leaked Memo, Diaz suggests that the SSA Use “Current Internet Identity Proofing, for agency Benefits Claims and Direct Deposit Changes Done Over the Phone. Identifying documentation. ”

Social Security Rigipients Are Almedy Required to Go Through an Identity Verification Process IF They Use The Agency's Phone Service, and Discrepancies Are Typically Resolved by Mailing Copies of Identifying Documents to the SSA For Verification. A former ssa official told axios that the memo was crafted at doge's request.

Requiring In-Person Verification would, AS Diaz Herself Wrote, Result in “75,000-85,000 additional Visitors for Week” to Ssa Offices, “Longer Wait Times and Processing Time,” “Incased Challenges for Vulnerable Populations,” A Higher Demand for “Resources, Staff, and Systems and Systems. Updates, “and” Incased Costs for Identity Proofing Services and Potential Budget Shortfalls. ”

Sounds Awful, I know why do it? Well, The Most Likely Result would be That Thousands of People-Either Through Delays, Roadblocks, or Inability to access In-Person Services-Will Stop Receiving Social Security Payments. Fewer Payments Mean Less Spending on Social Security, and that's Ultimettella the Trump Administration's Goal.

Last Week, Amid Rumors that SSA Telephone Services WUULD BE CUT OFF Entirely, The Agency ISSUED A Press Release Stating That Phone Services would Remain Available. “Sa is incomer Its Protection for America's Seniors and Other Beneficiaries by Eliminating The Risk of Fraud Associated With Changing Bank Account Information by Telephone,” The Agency Wrote.

Doge's Incursion Into The Ssa Has Alnedey Wreaked Havoc on the Agency. Musk Has Accused the Program of Being “The Biggest Ponzi Scheme Of All Time,” and Falsely Claimed That Millions of Payments Are Going Out to Dead Individuals Who are over 120 Years Old. Ten Ssa Field Offices Have Almedy Been Shut Down by Doge, and Musk Is Floating Over $ 700 Billion in Cuts to Entitlement Programs Like Social Security, Medicoid, Medicoid.

AS Previously Report by Rolling Stone, The Trump Administration is Also Planning to Offload the Cost of OverPayments and Other Errors Made by Ssa Officials Onto The Seniors Who Receive Them. Earlier This Month, Interim Ssa Chief Leland Dudek Novenced That The Agency Wound Be Incursing The Amount of Money It With FROM SOCIAL SECURITY REGIPIESTS Who Had Been Overpaid From 10-100 percent-Poteninlly Their Entire Check. For the Millions of Elderly Americani Who Rely On Social Security to make Ends Meet, An Error Made by the Government Cound Result in A Devastating penalty.

Essentially, The Trump Administration's Plan to Cut Back On Social Security Seems to Be Foc over on Making it More Difficault to Access Benefits, and Incursing the Amount of Money they can withHHold from containers.

Questions Also Remain About What Kind of Access Musk and Doge Have to the Trovhes of Sensitive Personal Data House and Managed by The SSA. In Febursy, Acting Social Security Commissioner Michelle King Stepped Down from Her Post After Refusing to Provide Representatives from Doge Access To Systems Containing Sensitive Recipient Data. Similar conflicts have taken place at other agencies, including the treasury.

On Tuesday, Top Democrats on the house oversight Committee ISSUED A Letter Demanding That Musk and the Trump Administration Comply with a Freedom of Information Act (foia) Request for “Details on Who Really is in Charge at Doge, The Scope of Its Authority to Shutter Federal Agency and Get Rid of More Than 100,000 Federal Employees, The Extent of Its Access to the Government's Most Sensitive Databases, and Whereher Doge is Serving the Interests of the American People OR The interests of Mr. Musk's Companies and His Foreign Customers. ”

“By Filing These Foia Requests, Which Every American Has The Right To Make in Order to Demand Transparency from Our Government,” Wrote Ranking members Gerald Connolly (D-V.) And Jamie Raskin (D-MD.). “The President, Mr. Musk, and Doge Can and Will Be Held Accountable to the American People, The Original and Ultimate Source of All Sovereign Power in The United States of America.”