William A. Halter, Deputy Commissioner of Social Security's Testimony
before the House Committee on Ways and Means, Subcommittee on Social
Security Hearing on the Social Security Administration's Program Integrity
Activities, March 30, 2000 Mr. Chairman and Members of
the Subcommittee:
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the integrity of the Social
Security program and the Social Security Administration's (SSA)
stewardship of the program. Since SSA became an independent agency-5 years
ago tomorrow coincidentally-we have devoted significant resources and
attention to strengthening and maintaining the integrity of the Social
Security program.
I'd like to briefly outline the size and scope of the Social Security
program. In Fiscal Year 2000, Social Security will pay almost $400 billion
to 45 million beneficiaries, almost one of every four federal budget
dollars. On average, each workday about 100,000 people visit one of our
1,300 field offices and over 240,000 people call our 800-telephone number.
Each workday we process an average of 20,000 initial claims and hold 2,400
hearings before Administrative Law Judges. Each year, we ensure that over
250 million earnings items are correctly credited to workers' accounts.
In the field of financial management information, SSA has long been a
leader among the Federal Government community. The Government Performance
Project, administered by the Syracuse University's Maxwell School of
Citizenship and Public Affairs, gave us the only "A" awarded to government
agencies in the area of financial management. SSA has also earned an
overall grade of "A", only one of two agencies to do so. In addition, SSA
was issued another clean unqualified audit opinion on its financial
statements for 1999 from the Office of the Inspector General for the sixth
year in a row.
The public's trust in the Social Security program is absolutely
critical. Even a perception of program integrity problems can threaten
this trust. Because of the importance of this issue, $1 out of every $4 in
SSA's administrative budget is dedicated to program stewardship and
program integrity. We must remain vigilant if we are to fulfill our role
as capable stewards of the public trust but SSA's ability to do so is
dependent on a number of factors, one of which is adequate resources.
This testimony provides an overview of how accurate we are in Title II
payments, the major causes of errors, our overpayment recovery successes
and the many initiatives we've undertaken to improve payment accuracy. Our
efforts currently underway to enforce a zero tolerance for program fraud
and abuse are also briefly described.
Overview
Since March 1995, SSA has sent Congress 35 legislative proposals, most
of which address program integrity issues. While some of these proposals
are still before Congress, those that have been enacted have given SSA
additional tools to improve program accuracy, to detect, prevent, and
collect overpayments, and to deter fraud.
I thank the Subcommittee and the full Ways and Means Committee for your
efforts in providing SSA the tools for this vital job. We will continue to
seek Congress' help in providing us with additional tools and sufficient
resources to maintain public confidence in the Social Security program,
which protects virtually all Americans in their retirement or in the event
of disability, or loss of a family wage earner.
Overall Payment Accuracy
The administrative cost of paying Social Security benefits is less than
2 percent of benefit payments in a year. The payment accuracy rate for the
retirement and survivors insurance benefits was 99.9 percent for Fiscal
Year 1999. When we include the disability insurance program, the accuracy
rate is 99.8 percent. That is, for every $100 in program benefits, only
twenty cents is either overpaid or underpaid. The accuracy rate for Social
Security benefits has remained consistent over the past 10 years generally
at 99.8 percent to 99.9 percent.
Another way to look at our effective and efficient management of the
Social Security program is the consistency with which we detect
overpayments. Over the past 10 years, the percentage of overpayment
detection has consistently run between 0.4 and 0.5 percent of Social
Security benefit outlays.
Leading Causes of Overpayments
In fiscal year 1999, SSA detected $1.8 billion in Social Security
program overpayments-$1 billion in the retirement and survivors program,
and $800 million in the disability insurance program. Nearly two-thirds of
this total overpayment amount occurs for two reasons-the retirement
earnings test and disability cessations.
Retirement Earnings Test
The largest portion of Social Security overpayments is caused by the
difficulty that individuals have in accurately predicting their earnings
for purposes of the retirement earnings test. In Fiscal Year 1999,
overpayments related to the retirement earnings test totaled $670 million.
The President will sign shortly, H.R. 5, the Senior Citizens' Freedom
to Work Act of 2000. This historic piece of legislation, which began in
this Subcommittee, eliminates the earnings test for individuals at or
above the normal retirement age, currently 65 years. The enactment of H.R.
5 will eliminate two-thirds, approximately $445 million annually, of the
overpayments presently caused by the retirement earnings test. While
certainly not as important a policy goal as helping individuals remain
active and productive, eliminating the leading cause of erroneous Social
Security benefit payments is a beneficial side effect of the legislation.
Social Security will implement this legislation as quickly as possible
after the President signs the legislation. However, with the passage of
this legislation, SSA will have one-time costs in Fiscal Year 2000 to make
benefit adjustments, respond to inquiries, process additional claims, and
modify our computer systems. We are working on a priority basis to ensure
individuals receive all benefits due them as quickly as possible. In
addition, our goal is to send benefits automatically so that beneficiaries
do not have to take action on their own to receive higher payments. We
would appreciate your support for the President's $35 million Fiscal Year
2000 supplemental appropriation request to fund one-time costs for
implementation of the Senior Citizens' Freedom to Work Act of 2000. These
funds are necessary to cover SSA's one-time costs to implement this
important legislation and to pay out $6 billion in benefits this year as
quickly and efficiently as possible.
Disability Cessations
The second leading cause of Social Security overpayments is disability
cessation. Two events related to disability cessation can cause
overpayments. The first has to do with disability beneficiaries going to
work, and the second involves cases in which disability beneficiaries
medically recover.
Overpayments due to individuals with disabilities working are often
caused by their not reporting earnings to SSA timely. By the time the
earnings are recorded, they may be past the point at which their benefits
should have stopped, resulting in overpayments. About $294 million of the
total $441million in disability cessation overpayments last year involved
work. We are taking a number of actions to make sure that beneficiaries
know the importance of reporting their earnings and that the earnings are
posted timely to their SSA record.
Under the recently enacted Ticket To Work and Work Incentives
Improvement Act of 1999, we are establishing a new position in our field
offices called the Employment Support Representative. Among other duties,
this individual will be responsible for explaining to beneficiaries with
disabilities who are working or want to work how earnings will affect
their benefits. In addition, employees in this new position will monitor
the earnings of working disability beneficiaries to ensure that
adjustments in benefits are timely thereby avoiding or at least reducing
overpayments. Additionally, SSA will fund, in part, community-based
planners who will assist disability beneficiaries in understanding the
effect of work on their benefits and the requirements to report work and
earnings to SSA timely.
Last summer, SSA increased the amount a disability beneficiary could
earn from $500 to $700 a month without affecting their monthly benefit.
Although it is too early to say with certainty that this higher amount
will result in fewer overpayments caused by work, we anticipate that this
will be the case.
The second primary cause of disability cessation overpayments is
medical recovery. A provision in the 1984 disability amendments provides
that if SSA determines through a continuing disability review (CDR) that
an individual's medical condition has improved, he or she may elect to
continue receiving disability benefits during appeal of a medical
cessation determination. If the appeal is subsequently denied, these
continued benefits are overpayments subject to recovery. Last year we
estimated disability cessation overpayments due to benefit continuation
totaled nearly $147 million. All overpayments that occur because an
individual exercises his or her right for continued disability benefits
during appeal are unpreventable.
SSA is required by law to conduct periodic Continuing Disability
Reviews. The CDR process allows SSA to ensure the integrity of the
disability insurance program by detecting beneficiaries' medical
improvements and preventing benefit payments to individuals who are no
longer disabled. In 1996, with the support of the Administration, Congress
authorized an adjustment to the cap on discretionary spending for
processing CDRs. As a result of this cap adjustment, SSA was able to
implement a 7-year CDR plan covering 1996-2002. It is important to note
that the growth in the amount of disability benefit overpayments is due
almost wholly to our increased CDR efforts that actually result in future
program savings.
As detailed in our annual CDR reports to Congress, the CDRs undertaken
in the first 3 years of the 7-year plan are estimated to result in total
savings to the disability insurance, SSI, Medicaid, and Medicare programs
of nearly $6 billion by the end of 2002. The ratio of program savings to
the administrative costs of CDRs is very impressive. It is estimated that
over the first 3 years of the CDR plan, the overall savings to cost ratio
was about 12 to 1. Further, it is estimated that over the life of our 7
year plan, the overall savings to cost ratio will be at least 6 to 1.
Other Major Causes of Overpayments
In addition to our stewardship efforts involving CDRs, SSA has
undertaken significant initiatives over the past several years to prevent
and detect Social Security program overpayments due to incarceration or
death of beneficiaries. SSA has been involved in efforts employing data
matches with prisons and States. In addition, the data collected are being
shared with other Federal benefit-paying programs to help reduce their
program costs.
Another area of data matching for detecting and preventing Social
Security overpayments involves workers' compensation payments. As you
know, Mr. Chairman, this is an extremely complicated provision of the
Social Security program, and we are working to improve our administration
of this issue. Although these data matches are not yet as extensive as
those involving prisons and State death records, we anticipate that such
matches will help us with our program stewardship responsibilities.
Prisoner Matches
Social Security benefits are not payable to certain persons
incarcerated as a result of a conviction of a crime and certain other
confined individuals (for example, those found not guilty by reason of
insanity).
SSA began matching information with prisons as early as 1974 to prevent
the payment of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits to any
individual in a public institution and, in 1986, the matching program was
extended to prisoners who were Social Security beneficiaries. However,
these early matches did not produce information quickly enough to prevent
significant amounts of overpayments.
Beginning in 1994, SSA expanded its efforts to find ways in which we
could obtain data from State and local entities to quickly identify
prisoners whose benefits should be suspended. By the end of 1995, SSA had
established reporting agreements with more than 3,500 incarceration
facilities.
Since 1995, SSA has consistently supported legislation for incentive
payments to prisons, and in May 1996, SSA sent a draft bill to Congress,
which included a provision for incentive payments. Such incentive payments
for SSI cessations were included in the welfare reform legislation that
was enacted in 1996. With the support of this subcommittee last year,
under the Ticket To Work and Work Incentive Improvements Act of 1999, the
requirement that confinement stem from a crime punishable by imprisonment
for more than 1 year was eliminated. Also, the incentive payment
provisions for prisons reporting incarcerations of beneficiaries that have
been applicable in the SSI program were extended to the Social Security
program. These provisions are effective for incarcerations that begin on
or after April 1, 2000. Under these incentive payments, prisons that
report the incarceration of beneficiaries within the first 30 days of
confinement can receive $400 per report, and if they report between the
30th-90th day of confinement, they can receive $200 per report.
Today, SSA gets reports of prisoner confinements from 95 percent of
correctional facilities, including the Federal Bureau of Prisons, all
State prison systems, and county and local jails. These reports cover 99
percent of the inmate population in the United States. With the support of
these Federal, State, and local entities, SSA has made substantial
progress in ensuring that incarcerations are timely and accurately
reported and that benefits are suspended promptly. In December 1999, there
were approximately 45,000 individuals who were not receiving Social
Security benefits because they were incarcerated. We estimate that savings
to the Social Security and Supplemental Security Income program resulting
from these efforts will total more than $3.5 billion during fiscal years
1995-2001. Of this total, $2.3 billion are savings to the Social Security
program.
SSA is the Federal focal point for sharing prisoner information. This
allows for more efficient use of Government resources and assists all
Federal benefit paying agencies in enforcing statutory requirements to
reduce, suspend, or terminate these benefits. SSA is already sharing
prisoner data with the Department of Agriculture and will have matching
agreements in effect with the Departments of Veterans Affairs and
Education next month. In addition, we are in the process of completing an
agreement with the Department of Labor.
Death Data Matches
In Fiscal Year 1999, we detected $84 million in overpayments due to
death. We get about 95 percent of our death reports from funeral homes,
family members, postal authorities and institutions. For the remaining 5
percent, we rely on information from the States. Under SSA-State
agreements, States provide death information within 90 to 120 days after
the month of death. When SSA receives a report of a previously unreported
death from the State, an alert is issued to the field office to
independently verify that the individual is, in fact, deceased, before
benefits are stopped.
Two legislative proposals that were in the Supplemental Security Income
Program Integrity Act of 1998, which SSA sent to Congress in May 1998,
were designed to facilitate and speed up States' reporting of deaths. The
first provision, which was enacted in the Foster Care Independence Act of
1999, deems SSA's data privacy standards to meet all State standards for
purposes of sharing data. The second provision would have required States
to provide death data within 30 days of its receipt. Congress did not
adopt this provision.
In 1999, SSA entered into a contract with the National Center for
Health Statistics and the National Association for Public Health
Statistics and Information Systems to start developing a national
electronic death registry. The objective of this initiative is to obtain
death information from the States within 24 hours of receipt at the
State's repository. SSA expects 10 States per year to implement electronic
State death registries based on States' readiness to adopt electronic
processing.
Workers' Compensation Matches
A difficult and often error prone feature of Social Security's
disability insurance program involves the provision that requires
disability benefits to be offset by workers' compensation benefits also
being paid to the beneficiary.
Overpayments frequently occur when a final decision on workers'
compensation payments is not made until after Social Security disability
benefits begin. In addition, the allocation of the offset due to a
lump-sum workers' compensation payment involves a manual calculation,
which is time consuming and labor intensive.
SSA has ongoing, periodic computer matches with Federal agencies to
obtain information regarding Federal workers' compensation payments. For
purposes of checking initial claims, SSA now has on-line access, at least
on a limited basis, with nine States. This on-line capability allows us to
get correct workers' compensation information immediately when
adjudicating the claim. We are also pursuing matching agreements with
other States that will allow us to get both current and historical data
about workers' compensation amounts for individual beneficiaries.
Unfortunately, one of the issues associated with matching data is that not
all States have the workers compensation data in a single database. A
large portion of workers' compensation payments is made through insurance
companies.
While we have not yet been as successful in matching workers'
compensation data as we have with, for example, prison data, we will
continue to explore data matches as a way to detect and prevent Social
Security overpayments caused by workers' compensation payments.
While we rely on such data matches to protect the integrity of our
programs, nothing is more important in the operation of our programs than
ensuring that the public has confidence that the information placed in our
trust is secure. This is a cornerstone of our philosophy. In fact, the
very first regulation is issued by the new SSA in 1935 dealt with the
confidentiality of its records.
SSA uses state-of-the art encryption software that protects data sent
to us and systems firewalls that protect access to our databases. We are
constantly reevaluating the security features necessary to protect the
information we receive and maintain.
Overpayment Collections
In addition to detecting the causes of overpayments, we have also
concentrated on recovery of those overpayments. In Fiscal Year 1999, SSA
collected $1.2 billion in overpayments--$900 million in the retirement and
survivors insurance program and $300 million in the disability insurance
program. Based on a study conducted in the 1990's, we estimate that 60
percent of the overpayments in any given year will be recovered within 7
years. And, I would note that we recover more than 90 percent of
overpayments owed by individuals who continue to be entitled to benefits.
Our stewardship responsibilities require that we recover as much of the
debt owed as possible. Our goal is to achieve an annual average increase
of 7 percent in debt collections over the 5-year period from Fiscal Years
1998-2002. In Fiscal Year 1999, we met our goal for both the Title II and
Title XVI programs. Our collections for Title II were $1.2 billion, an 8
percent increase. In the Title XVI program, we collected $640 million, an
18.7 percent increase.
How does SSA go about recovering the debt that we are owed?
The collection process is different, depending on whether individuals
are continuing to receive benefits or not receiving benefits.
Overpaid individuals who continue to be eligible for benefits receive
an overpayment notice informing them about the amount of the overpayment.
The notice gives the overpaid individual appeal and waiver rights and
discusses repayment options. Options include a full refund of the
overpayment immediately, or withholding overpayments from ongoing monthly
benefits. SSA has a much higher recovery rate for debts owed by
individuals who are on the benefit rolls.
Overpaid individuals who are no longer entitled to Social Security
benefits are notified of the overpayment, provided appeal and waiver
rights, requested to repay in full, or to contact us to negotiate an
installment payment agreement. For those who establish installment
agreements, SSA sends automated bills and notices requesting repayment. If
the overpaid individual ignores the bills and notices, SSA's debt
collectors call to arrange repayment. If the individual refuses to repay,
SSA uses other debt collection tools such as tax refund and other
administrative offsets and credit bureau reporting.
Although we believe that the provisions described above are the most
effective and productive tools for recovering overpayments, we are
planning to implement administrative wage garnishment and federal salary
offset. We also are planning to use private collection agencies and
interest charging as methods for recovering overpayments.
Anti-Fraud Initiatives
The distinction between overpayments and fraud is very important.
Social Security overpayments occur for a number of reasons, the majority
of which have been described above. Program fraud, on the other hand, is
an intentional act of deception, such as knowingly making a false
statement in order to obtain benefits.
In spite of our continued efforts to protect U.S. taxpayers by ensuring
that only individuals who are eligible for benefits receive only amounts
due them, some individuals attempt to obtain benefits fraudulently. While
there is no indication of widespread fraud associated with our processes,
we will continue to strengthen
our ability to prevent, detect, and investigate fraud and to penalize
those who misrepresent or omit facts in order to obtain benefits for which
they are not eligible.
One of SSA's five strategic goals is "to make SSA program management
the best in the business with zero tolerance for fraud." This wide-ranging
zero tolerance effort is coordinated through the National Anti-Fraud
Committee, which includes SSA senior staff and the Office of the Inspector
General. In addition to developing its own anti-fraud initiatives, the
National Committee oversees and supports Regional Anti-Fraud Committees,
which were set up to coordinate anti-fraud strategies in each of SSA's 10
regions. The Regional Committees include regional commissioners and other
senior SSA and OIG staff as well as managers of SSA district offices.
Independent agency status gave SSA its own Office of Inspector General.
This staff has more than doubled in size between 1996 and 2000 and now
includes over 500 employees. OIG plays a vital role in the stewardship of
the Social Security program and has partnered with SSA on numerous program
integrity and anti-fraud initiatives.
Another provision enacted last year in the Foster Care Independence Act
of 1999 requires the Commissioner to report annually on the funds needed
for prevention of fraud. SSA's management plan includes goals directly
related to this issue. SSA will devote $1.7 billion to program integrity
and anti-fraud initiatives in Fiscal Year 2000. These budget items include
funding for SSA's Office of Inspector General, continuing disability
reviews, SSI redeterminations, representative payee monitoring, annual
earnings posting, and debt collection. All of these efforts are resource
intensive, and reductions in resources budgeted by SSA would affect our
program-integrity plans and likely would result in unprevented and
undetected fraud and overpayments.
Employees in 1,300 local field offices and 54 Disability Determination
Services are our biggest assets in the fight against fraud. Their
commitment in maintaining the integrity of the Social Security program is
unswerving. Often, it is field office and DDS employees who are able to
uncover suspicious or fraudulent schemes. We will continue to train them
in anti-fraud practices and seek additional tools to make their anti-fraud
commitment more effective. As an indication of Social Security employees
dedication to the agency's anti-fraud efforts, a recent survey found that
96 percent of the Social Security workforce viewed having zero tolerance
for program fraud and abuse to be a very important part of their jobs.
Cooperative Disability Investigations Teams
SSA and our Inspector General have set up investigative units --called
"Cooperative Disability Investigations" (CDI) teams-consisting of an IG
special agent, two investigators from a State or local law enforcement
agency, and two DDS and/or SSA personnel. The purpose of this initiative
is to provide greater investigative support to the State DDSs so that they
may make more accurate decisions on disability claims. Fostering an
exchange of information between disability decision-makers and
investigators, the CDI process enhances the potential for identifying
overpayments and denying fraudulent initial applications, and ensures
timely investigation and termination of benefits when fraud is detected
during CDRs. In addition, the CDI teams investigate and pursue criminal
prosecution of doctors, lawyers, and other third parties who commit fraud
against the disability program. There are currently seven CDI units
operating throughout the United States.
As of February 2000, the CDI units have processed 2,231 case referrals
and developed evidence to support 699 denials for a projected program
savings of nearly $37 million. This reflects overpayment detections, some
of which include fraud. This is more than 10 times the project's costs so
far. In addition the project has produced more than $11.7 million in
related State program savings. As a result of these efforts, we expect to
see increases in employee morale and public confidence as SSA has another
proactive tool in the fight against fraud.
Representative Payees
SSA has broad authority to appoint representative payees for those
beneficiaries who are incapable of managing or directing the management of
their funds. In fact, direct payment is prohibited to beneficiaries who
are legally incompetent, children under age 15 and for those disabled
beneficiaries where alcoholism or drug addiction is a contributing factor
material to the determination of disability.
There are 4.7 million Social Security beneficiaries who require
representative payees. Family members serve as representative payees for
over 90 percent of the beneficiaries requiring them. The remaining 10
percent are institutions, government agencies, financial organizations,
and fee-for-service organizations. The vast majority of representative
payees provide much needed help to beneficiaries who are the most
vulnerable of our population without abusing this responsibility.
Unfortunately, there have been some instances of misuse by representative
payees. The amount of benefits misused by payees is a small percentage of
benefits paid, an estimated $3 million per year.
To improve our ability to detect and prevent such problems, we have
developed a plan for increased monitoring of organizational payees. Among
other steps, we are visiting fee-for-service payees 6 months after their
initial appointment as payee, requiring these payees to annually show
proof of current bonding or licensing, and conducting site reviews. The
OIG has pledged to work with us to improve all aspects of monitoring this
program.
Finally, because administrative actions alone are not sufficient to
ameliorate problems, we sent to Congress on February 22, a set of
legislative proposals for that would provide additional safeguards for
beneficiaries with representative payees and we urge the Subcommittee to
give these prompt attention. Included in this package is a provision that
would permit SSA to reissue benefit payments in all cases when an
organizational payee is found to have misused a beneficiary's funds. This
would enable SSA to provide prompt relief to beneficiaries victimized by
unscrupulous representative payees. On September 28, 1999, SSA sent to
Congress a draft bill entitled the Civil Monetary Penalty Extension Act of
1999, that would extend the civil monetary penalty provisions to
representative payees that misuse benefits.
Social Security Number (SSN) Fraud
SSA issues about 16 million new and replacement cards in a typical year
and there are nearly 300 million numbers currently issued. The expanded
use of the Social Security number (SSN) as a personal identifier for
everything from opening a bank account to listing of newborns as
dependents on tax returns has given rise to obtaining SSN cards based on
false information.
SSA has identified three basic types of fraud related to the Social
Security number - when someone illegally obtains a new number or uses
someone else's number illegally; when someone establishes an entirely new
identity using illegal documents; or identity theft, when someone assumes
another person's identity.
To prevent issuing a new number for fraudulent purposes, SSA maintains
a "disallowed file" that contains information on every person whose
application for an SSN was denied because he or she submitted fraudulent
documentation. This database currently holds over 94,000 items and grows
by an average of 10,000 items a year.
SSA's Comprehensive Integrity Review Process alerts field offices when
multiple Social Security cards have been sent to the same address over a
short period. The office then investigates to determine whether the alert
reflects any fraudulent activity.
To prevent someone from establishing a new identity using illegally
obtained birth documents, SSA links the SSN to the birth certificate by
working with hospitals and State departments of vital statistics to
facilitate enumeration at birth facilities. We are also planning changes
that will suspend the issuance of SSN cards in cases involving children
under 18 when the parent's age is questionable until an investigation has
been conducted. Every application for an SSN is also checked against SSA's
Death Master File to ensure that there is no death indicator on file for
the individual or SSN.
To prevent identity theft, SSA employees who process SSN applications
receive ongoing training on document authenticity that includes birth
certificates and Immigration and Naturalization Service documents. In
cooperation with the Department of State, we are developing a program of
"enumeration at entry" which would provide SSNs at the point that a
non-citizen enters the country and is eligible for a number.
If identity theft is discovered, SSA helps the victim reconcile any
discrepancies that may have resulted from earnings being posted to an
incorrect file. In certain cases, we assign a new SSN to the victim in
order to establish a new credit record and stop the fraud from continuing.
While there are significant criminal penalties for SSN fraud, there are
no provisions that authorize SSA to impose civil penalties for these
offenses. The Civil Monetary Penalty Extension Act of 1999, which I
mentioned earlier, would establish civil monetary penalties for offenses
involving fraudulent application or misuse of numbers and Social Security
cards.
Fraud Deterrence
In May 1998, SSA sent a proposal to Congress, the SSI Program Integrity
Act of 1998, that authorizes SSA to impose specified periods of
ineligibility for Social Security benefits on any individual who knowingly
provides SSA with false or misleading information in order to qualify for
benefits. This responds to situations where criminal or civil penalties
may not be feasible. We are pleased that Congress enacted this provision
in the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999.
In addition, the Administration fully supported another fraud deterrent
provision in the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999 that bars
representatives and health care providers from the OASDI and SSI programs
if they were found to have helped commit fraud. The penalty is for 5
years, 10 years, and permanent exclusion for the first, second, and third
offenses respectively.
Conclusion
Again, we would like to thank the Subcommittee for its efforts over the
years to maintain the integrity of the Social Security program. We wish to
continue and build on quality management of the Social Security program by
developing new administrative procedures to prevent and detect
overpayments and fraud. We will also continue to develop legislative
proposals to send to Congress whenever we see a situation that cannot be
remedied administratively.
We are committed to our role as stewards of the trust fund and will
strive to improve public confidence in the Social Security program.
Quality stewardship and program integrity often involve labor intensive
efforts. We look forward to this Subcommittee's support to ensure that SSA
is adequately funded in order to maintain quality program management
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I will be happy to
answer any questions that you may have.
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