The Washington Post has issued multiple stories regarding Social Security’s Office of Inspector General and that office’s enforcement of fines and penalties levied against beneficiaries as part of the OIG’s anti-fraud program. Now an investigation has been ordered to look into the matter at the OIG.
Below is a portion of the Washington Post article that addresses the actions of the OIG’s office where some beneficiaries were ordered to pay back money they were not entitled to or even ordered to pay back more than they received in benefits.
The inflated fees were set in motion during the Trump administration, when attorneys in charge of a little-known anti-fraud program run by the inspector general’s office levied unprecedented fines against Deckman and more than 100 other beneficiaries without due process, according to interviews, documents and sworn testimony before an administrative law judge. In doing so, they disregarded regulations and deviated from how the program had recovered money since its inception in 1995, failing to take into account someone’s financial state, their age, their intentions and level of remorse, among other factors.
The sums demanded by the government stunned those accused of fraud. The unusual penalties were not the only break with how the Civil Monetary Penalty program had previously been conducted: Unlike in the past, the chief counsel also directed staff attorneys to charge those affected as much as twice the money they had received in error, on top of the fines, interviews and court testimony show.
It was reported that an independent watchdog group, the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE), is currently leading the investigation. The CIGIE is a group that investigates misconduct allegations against inspectors general. Additionally, Acting Social Security Commissioner Kilolo Kijakazi has ordered Social Security’s Inspector General, Gail Ennis, to suspend the anti-fraud program.
Details
Details of how devastating the actions of the OIG’s practices were during this increased anti-fraud effort by the OIG can be difficult to gage, but the Washington Post provided some details of how beneficiaries were negatively impacted. Below is one incident the paper identified that raises some serious questions regarding the OIG’s actions during this anti-fraud effort.
Four years after her longtime partner died of kidney cancer, federal agents knocked on Gail Deckman’s door outside Chicago and told her she was in trouble: She had kept thousands of dollars in Social Security disability benefits that should have stopped when he died.
Deckman told the agents she thought the $1,400 check deposited each month into an account to which she had access was a payment for land her partner had sold in Michigan. She spent the money on rent and clothes and gifts for her grandchildren, she said.
The inspector general’s office, which investigates disability fraud and tries to recoup money for the government, ultimately charged her $119,392 — nearly three times what she received in error.
