An internal Social Security Administration (SSA) memo, sent on March 13 and obtained by Popular Information, details proposed changes to the claims process that would debilitate the agency, cause significant processing delays, and prevent many Americans from applying for or receiving benefits.
The cruelty is the point. Sure, make people with no easy or reliable internet access appear in person...at an office hundreds of miles away. And how many months will go by until an appointment is available? This is the same bullshit that Republicans have so effectively deployed to keep black people from registering to vote, resulting in Republican election theft. And this time it is being deployed to steal money from eligible recipients so that money can be stolen for Elon's tax cut.
The experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, pain, suffering, or humiliation of another.
It increases and enforces feelings of hopelessness and helplessness when you mess with lifelines. It also sucks up a lot of time & energy of those affected, family or advocates trying to comply.
It is like the Vought ‘trauma for federal workers’. Yes, they like the cruelty but it drives people to be more compliant or get out. Both of which accomplish their goal with less legal hassle or delay.
Our adversary is about to be surprised. Many folks are starting to dig their heels in with many more to follow. Looking forward to the pushback from all of us due to our myriad shared interests. This is history in the making and we are a part of it. People like us do our share Ann. I'm beginning to feel stronger and more hopeful by the day.
I always marvel at how clueless rich people are and this is a perfect example. If you spend your life with people around you as servants to smooth the bumps in the road, you never have to think about things like this and naturally you consciously or unconsciously assume everyone else has it just as easy as you. The cruelty is just a byproduct of being stupid.
"you consciously or unconsciously assume everyone else has it just as easy as you"
Which means if they are struggling, they just aren't trying hard enough. They aren't pulling those bootstraps tightly enough. They dared have pizza for the kids on Friday Treat Night instead of investing in Tesla stock.
It gets pretty ridiculous doesn't it? Like every person who is eligible for assistance spends the whole thing on steak, lobster (which in the past was food for poor folks) and new cell phones.
I have been following closely SSA maneuvering since Jan. 20: MLK Day and Inauguration Day. Coincidentally, I also learned we’d had $20,000 stolen from our bank account the week before. I just went through the monumental hassle of closing one account, opening a new one and having to make sure my SSA check went to the right place. I’ll spare the rest of the details of how much time it took. I’m beyond despair at what is happening here.
Adam, I’m in the boat with you. Ready to collect SS next year. The timing is horrendous. We have lost 60 years of progress. The mega money hoarders like Thiel, Musk, Trump, et al aren’t affected by SS as they give an utterly insignificant amount to it. But every minimum wage worker and up to $168k pay in against their entire salary with a company match.
Precisely. You know, if anything makes SS a "Ponzi scheme" it's the fact that the large earners are capped at $168,600! That is patently ridiculous.
And the end result is the folks who pay the least into SS are the ones with the most money? That's a strategic inversion in their favor and still they want to snatch the ramen noodles warm and dangling from our mouths?
Take note that one of the catches they are cooking up is to make it difficult to change your bank account. That must be a flag for fraud, right? Hope your change was effected before Elon took the reins.
You make an excellent point here, however there are many examples of good people who were/are wealthy. In the case of Krasnov and his Musk minion, they are just cruel and nasty people.
That is why I used language to untangle that knot. The RW hit squad loves to use disinfo with a kernel of truth in it to befuddle and confuse the masses as to what is really "real."
That is why I used language to untangle that knot. The RW hit squad loves to use disinfo with a kernel of truth in it to befuddle and confuse the masses as to what is really "real."
I am my mentally disabled sister's legal guardian. She lives in a group home where she is very happy. I visit her a couple times a month, bring her copies of Vogue (her favorite), blahblahblah. We're reconnecting after years of being apart because our mom was a bitch. My sister seems to really like me, which makes me happy.
Anyway, she is on Social Security because she's not capable of caring for herself and functions at about the level of a 6 year old. I worry that she is going to suffer during this heartless coup. What if I die before she does or become incapacitated even for a short while? I called the national Social Security number a month or so ago. It had a 2 hour hold time. I didn't hold. I can't imagine what that's going to be like after the imperial couple finish "finding fraud."
As a forefather who never bothered to marry, was open about his hedonistic urges, and knew a thing or two once said, "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." The speaker was, of course, Benjamin Franklin.
Franklin did marry in his 20s. Deborah Read’s husband deserted her and fled to the West Indies avoid creditors — He spent most of her assets. (Some researchers believe he had an undisclosed previous wife when they married.) They entered into a common-law marriage with a contract to protect her against charges of bigamy in case her husband reappeared. His 2 children with her were considered legitimate.
I too had a disabled sister (autism) who received modest Social Security benefits. This offered us, her siblings and main sources of support, a tiny bit of security should she outlive all of us. In our case, she has passed away. But I can feel the fear that gnaws away at families like ours who must take care of loved ones in an unstable - or uncaring - society. This should never happen in a civilized nation. Please hang in there. You are not alone.
I have a disabled granddaughter who receives disability benefits. With the threats to SS, Medicaid -which provides her medical coverage- and Dept of Education - which supports public school education plans for the disabled - I have deep concerns for her future. These attacks on our institutions will have a broad and deep impact. Remember it all!
Judd was given the smoking gun of how Trump/GOP will deny seniors and the disabled the hard-earned benefits they've paid for their entire lives. A perfect bait and switch: "Of course you can *apply* over the phone. Oh, wait, to actually *get* your benefits, you'll have to make an appointment for an office visit 100 miles away. Oh, and the next opening is in three month's time."
To these soulless criminals, every dollar paid out in Social Security is a dollar they believe should be going to Elon and Jeffy so they can buy new yachts. Disgusting.
As always, you are on the money, Judd. Since the inauguration, I have been waiting for this attack. It will hit all working Americans, less so maybe the millionaires who don’t depend on Social Security in retirement. This may be a tipping point.
Trump's older brother, Freddy, had 2 children, one of whom has a son with a significant disability resulting in need for around-the-clock care. Long story short, when Freddy died, Donald managed to get his hands on the trust Freddy had set up and he discontinued health insurance for his nephew, say it might be better if the boy just died.
This is the guy now running the $h!t-show that America has become. I am retired, but can barely keep up with the nasty and cruel activities of this administration. It is becoming harder to not give in to despair, but fight we must. My adult granddaughter needs supports too, and Trump would abandon this lovely young woman to the streets without a second look.
PLEASE show up on April 5th for the rallies in DC or your state capitol. We may not get many more chances.
Jim Crow never stopped. It merely hibernated until such time as it could once again raise it's ugly head like a virulent cancer in a family genetically predisposed to such an ailment.
I cannot travel, I cannot go out to restaurants, my life long plan was to travel across country camping in our National Parks. That was it. My one wish. My husband passed away suddenly before retirement. I had a stroke, and have crippling degenerative disc disease. Without my SS and Medicare I will live in constant pain and will no longer have insurance to cover anything. That is their plan. To Elon in particular we are old and useless, nothing more than insects under his feet. I didn’t see his name on my ballots and he is from South Africa so he could not be our president. Seems he is though.
This also affects prescriptions using Part D. I have the money for the premium taken out of my social security account each month. I only pay for my supplement separately.
— AARP’s 2020 financial statement, the latest available, reports just over $1 billion in royalties. That’s more than three times what it collected in member dues, just over $300 million, according to the report. Of the royalties, $752 million were from unnamed “health products and services.”
…
For years, AARP has drawn intermittent scrutiny for its longtime partnership with UnitedHealthcare, which uses the AARP seal of approval to market products that fill gaps in the traditional Medicare program — gaps filled by private insurers.
The arrangement has brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in annual royalties, according to court records. —
I've also noted the silence from the AARP. I've had two calls from them. One was to call Congress to ask them to include help for family caretakers. While that would be great, they were missing the forest for the trees. The other was to talk about applying for Social Security, which is good information but sadly out of date in this present mess.
AARP, like many organizations, is terrified of losing members who are MAGA-infested Republicans. We cannot count on AARP to help.
They continue their plan to defund, dismantle and destroy the very safety nets that care for the most vulnerable and civilize us all. Every one should care, not just because we all know and love a recipient of Social Security, but because it is our job as humans to care for the most vulnerable of humans, even the stranger. Their job is to turn us against each other by dehumanizing and demonizing the other. Even though only a third of eligible voters cast their ballot for this mess we are all now captive on this ship of fools. Donald Trump is the chief pirate of these high C’s- cruelty, corruption, confusion, callousness, capriciousness, contempt and chaos- and with his first mate of the chainsaw- Elon Musk- they and their minions are sailing us to hell. When this ship finally burns and sinks no one- Not A One- will escape without suffering.
Sick to my stomach, that's how this is all effecting me. I am a pensioner, and SS recipient, after 50 years of working, and if they want to come for my benefit, they will meet an outraged and ready for battle old lady. I can fight but my elderly neighbors, my old friends, my elders who have never used a computer and don't own a cell phone - and oh by the way, all of the younger relatives who will be there to help these older people and now have to spend hours of their lives on the phone, on their computers, in long lines at the offices, will now be the ones who suffer. And while old people can suffer in silence, these younger children, and grandchildren, will not.
Judd, Great Investigative Reporting by the Best! We Thank You! Please don’t stop. Keep tell the Truth with facts and facts until they are buried along with their lies and soulless ways.
Either Trump is going to attack his base or he is going to break with Musk. I hope that anti-Trump activists on the ground will keep issues that affect people's basic economic interests front and center. That is what drove voters to Trump in the election and that can be his undoing.
I hope the messaging duct tapes the actions of trump to the pain they feel.
No more deniability with the GOP magic words “Biden” “Democrats” etc.
Polls indicate attitudes are going more negative. Some of his biggest constituencies like rural areas (farmers) and older veterans & voters who need services will be very unhappy shortly— if they are not already. Then there is the fact that almost 30% of federal workers are veterans.
The cruelty is the point. Sure, make people with no easy or reliable internet access appear in person...at an office hundreds of miles away. And how many months will go by until an appointment is available? This is the same bullshit that Republicans have so effectively deployed to keep black people from registering to vote, resulting in Republican election theft. And this time it is being deployed to steal money from eligible recipients so that money can be stolen for Elon's tax cut.
"Cruelty is the point"–and the pleasure they derive from creating the pain is the motivation.
There is a term for this.
Schadenfreude:
The experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction that comes from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, pain, suffering, or humiliation of another.
Precisely. Like a cat with prey they like to toy with and encourage the struggles of for their pleasure.
It increases and enforces feelings of hopelessness and helplessness when you mess with lifelines. It also sucks up a lot of time & energy of those affected, family or advocates trying to comply.
It is like the Vought ‘trauma for federal workers’. Yes, they like the cruelty but it drives people to be more compliant or get out. Both of which accomplish their goal with less legal hassle or delay.
Our adversary is about to be surprised. Many folks are starting to dig their heels in with many more to follow. Looking forward to the pushback from all of us due to our myriad shared interests. This is history in the making and we are a part of it. People like us do our share Ann. I'm beginning to feel stronger and more hopeful by the day.
From your keyboard to G*d’s screen, Adam
I always marvel at how clueless rich people are and this is a perfect example. If you spend your life with people around you as servants to smooth the bumps in the road, you never have to think about things like this and naturally you consciously or unconsciously assume everyone else has it just as easy as you. The cruelty is just a byproduct of being stupid.
"you consciously or unconsciously assume everyone else has it just as easy as you"
Which means if they are struggling, they just aren't trying hard enough. They aren't pulling those bootstraps tightly enough. They dared have pizza for the kids on Friday Treat Night instead of investing in Tesla stock.
It gets pretty ridiculous doesn't it? Like every person who is eligible for assistance spends the whole thing on steak, lobster (which in the past was food for poor folks) and new cell phones.
I have been following closely SSA maneuvering since Jan. 20: MLK Day and Inauguration Day. Coincidentally, I also learned we’d had $20,000 stolen from our bank account the week before. I just went through the monumental hassle of closing one account, opening a new one and having to make sure my SSA check went to the right place. I’ll spare the rest of the details of how much time it took. I’m beyond despair at what is happening here.
Wow! I share your despair. I'm turning 65 this year and I understand the benefit to be greater by waiting one year before applying.
You and others in similar predicaments are being cheated and I'm worried that just as I cross the finish line I'll be cheated too.
Of course for someone whose retirement is 20+ years away, this sense of unfairness is magnified.
Adam, I’m in the boat with you. Ready to collect SS next year. The timing is horrendous. We have lost 60 years of progress. The mega money hoarders like Thiel, Musk, Trump, et al aren’t affected by SS as they give an utterly insignificant amount to it. But every minimum wage worker and up to $168k pay in against their entire salary with a company match.
Precisely. You know, if anything makes SS a "Ponzi scheme" it's the fact that the large earners are capped at $168,600! That is patently ridiculous.
And the end result is the folks who pay the least into SS are the ones with the most money? That's a strategic inversion in their favor and still they want to snatch the ramen noodles warm and dangling from our mouths?
The avarice is astounding!!!
So sorry! We care...you aren't alone.
Take note that one of the catches they are cooking up is to make it difficult to change your bank account. That must be a flag for fraud, right? Hope your change was effected before Elon took the reins.
It was. The theft happened Inauguration Day. Thanks.
You make an excellent point here, however there are many examples of good people who were/are wealthy. In the case of Krasnov and his Musk minion, they are just cruel and nasty people.
Unelected bureaucrat Evilelmo:
"SSA is a fraud and a Ponzi-themed ENTITLEMENT!"
Myself - US citizen and former Marine:
"I've paid into the SSA for 50 years. That's no entitlement ya SA moron, that's my GD money!"
Exactly! That savings came from our paychecks!!
It is an entitlement because we are legally “entitled” to the benefits if we meet the criteria. Paying into the system is the major criteria.
Leave it to the GOP to tangle up that word with a different connotation and ignore the “legally entitled” aspect as they hack up our government.
That is why I used language to untangle that knot. The RW hit squad loves to use disinfo with a kernel of truth in it to befuddle and confuse the masses as to what is really "real."
That is why I used language to untangle that knot. The RW hit squad loves to use disinfo with a kernel of truth in it to befuddle and confuse the masses as to what is really "real."
A deliberate rhetorical twist to imply recipients are moochers just looking for a free ride.
Yes, I know. But I have no idea why we let them do that. Entitlement means the opposite of “moochers”, particularly in the case of Social Security.
I am my mentally disabled sister's legal guardian. She lives in a group home where she is very happy. I visit her a couple times a month, bring her copies of Vogue (her favorite), blahblahblah. We're reconnecting after years of being apart because our mom was a bitch. My sister seems to really like me, which makes me happy.
Anyway, she is on Social Security because she's not capable of caring for herself and functions at about the level of a 6 year old. I worry that she is going to suffer during this heartless coup. What if I die before she does or become incapacitated even for a short while? I called the national Social Security number a month or so ago. It had a 2 hour hold time. I didn't hold. I can't imagine what that's going to be like after the imperial couple finish "finding fraud."
I comfort myself with two mantras:
The Cruelty is the Point.
This Is A Coup.
Please find the rally near you on April 5th. Resistance in huge numbers may be our only chance to slow/stop some of this madness.
As a forefather who never bothered to marry, was open about his hedonistic urges, and knew a thing or two once said, "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." The speaker was, of course, Benjamin Franklin.
Franklin did marry in his 20s. Deborah Read’s husband deserted her and fled to the West Indies avoid creditors — He spent most of her assets. (Some researchers believe he had an undisclosed previous wife when they married.) They entered into a common-law marriage with a contract to protect her against charges of bigamy in case her husband reappeared. His 2 children with her were considered legitimate.
I too had a disabled sister (autism) who received modest Social Security benefits. This offered us, her siblings and main sources of support, a tiny bit of security should she outlive all of us. In our case, she has passed away. But I can feel the fear that gnaws away at families like ours who must take care of loved ones in an unstable - or uncaring - society. This should never happen in a civilized nation. Please hang in there. You are not alone.
I have a disabled granddaughter who receives disability benefits. With the threats to SS, Medicaid -which provides her medical coverage- and Dept of Education - which supports public school education plans for the disabled - I have deep concerns for her future. These attacks on our institutions will have a broad and deep impact. Remember it all!
Judd was given the smoking gun of how Trump/GOP will deny seniors and the disabled the hard-earned benefits they've paid for their entire lives. A perfect bait and switch: "Of course you can *apply* over the phone. Oh, wait, to actually *get* your benefits, you'll have to make an appointment for an office visit 100 miles away. Oh, and the next opening is in three month's time."
To these soulless criminals, every dollar paid out in Social Security is a dollar they believe should be going to Elon and Jeffy so they can buy new yachts. Disgusting.
As always, you are on the money, Judd. Since the inauguration, I have been waiting for this attack. It will hit all working Americans, less so maybe the millionaires who don’t depend on Social Security in retirement. This may be a tipping point.
Same here. "Conservatives" have hated Social Security ever since it started.
Trump's older brother, Freddy, had 2 children, one of whom has a son with a significant disability resulting in need for around-the-clock care. Long story short, when Freddy died, Donald managed to get his hands on the trust Freddy had set up and he discontinued health insurance for his nephew, say it might be better if the boy just died.
This is the guy now running the $h!t-show that America has become. I am retired, but can barely keep up with the nasty and cruel activities of this administration. It is becoming harder to not give in to despair, but fight we must. My adult granddaughter needs supports too, and Trump would abandon this lovely young woman to the streets without a second look.
PLEASE show up on April 5th for the rallies in DC or your state capitol. We may not get many more chances.
Jim Crow election hurdles all over again!!
Jim Crow never stopped. It merely hibernated until such time as it could once again raise it's ugly head like a virulent cancer in a family genetically predisposed to such an ailment.
Just tell us how many jelly beans are in the bowl and you can vote.
I cannot travel, I cannot go out to restaurants, my life long plan was to travel across country camping in our National Parks. That was it. My one wish. My husband passed away suddenly before retirement. I had a stroke, and have crippling degenerative disc disease. Without my SS and Medicare I will live in constant pain and will no longer have insurance to cover anything. That is their plan. To Elon in particular we are old and useless, nothing more than insects under his feet. I didn’t see his name on my ballots and he is from South Africa so he could not be our president. Seems he is though.
This is pure evil.
This also affects prescriptions using Part D. I have the money for the premium taken out of my social security account each month. I only pay for my supplement separately.
The AARP has seemed pretty quiet about all of this...
AARP's primary purpose is to sell Medicare Advantage, a rippoff private healthcare policy for seniors. They don't care.
To your point:
— AARP’s 2020 financial statement, the latest available, reports just over $1 billion in royalties. That’s more than three times what it collected in member dues, just over $300 million, according to the report. Of the royalties, $752 million were from unnamed “health products and services.”
…
For years, AARP has drawn intermittent scrutiny for its longtime partnership with UnitedHealthcare, which uses the AARP seal of approval to market products that fill gaps in the traditional Medicare program — gaps filled by private insurers.
The arrangement has brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in annual royalties, according to court records. —
https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/aarp-health-marketing-partnerships-medicare-medigap/
I have managed to resist the siren call of the AARP for 29 years and all the better for it. 😎
I've also noted the silence from the AARP. I've had two calls from them. One was to call Congress to ask them to include help for family caretakers. While that would be great, they were missing the forest for the trees. The other was to talk about applying for Social Security, which is good information but sadly out of date in this present mess.
AARP, like many organizations, is terrified of losing members who are MAGA-infested Republicans. We cannot count on AARP to help.
AARP collects royalties from United Healthcare for the right to use their name to sell their Medicare Advantage policies to seniors.
IMO they can no longer be a true advocate for seniors on one hand and collecting $1Billion from UHC & unknown sources, with the other.
https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/aarp-health-marketing-partnerships-medicare-medigap/
They continue their plan to defund, dismantle and destroy the very safety nets that care for the most vulnerable and civilize us all. Every one should care, not just because we all know and love a recipient of Social Security, but because it is our job as humans to care for the most vulnerable of humans, even the stranger. Their job is to turn us against each other by dehumanizing and demonizing the other. Even though only a third of eligible voters cast their ballot for this mess we are all now captive on this ship of fools. Donald Trump is the chief pirate of these high C’s- cruelty, corruption, confusion, callousness, capriciousness, contempt and chaos- and with his first mate of the chainsaw- Elon Musk- they and their minions are sailing us to hell. When this ship finally burns and sinks no one- Not A One- will escape without suffering.
Dark but apt.
Sick to my stomach, that's how this is all effecting me. I am a pensioner, and SS recipient, after 50 years of working, and if they want to come for my benefit, they will meet an outraged and ready for battle old lady. I can fight but my elderly neighbors, my old friends, my elders who have never used a computer and don't own a cell phone - and oh by the way, all of the younger relatives who will be there to help these older people and now have to spend hours of their lives on the phone, on their computers, in long lines at the offices, will now be the ones who suffer. And while old people can suffer in silence, these younger children, and grandchildren, will not.
Judd, Great Investigative Reporting by the Best! We Thank You! Please don’t stop. Keep tell the Truth with facts and facts until they are buried along with their lies and soulless ways.
Either Trump is going to attack his base or he is going to break with Musk. I hope that anti-Trump activists on the ground will keep issues that affect people's basic economic interests front and center. That is what drove voters to Trump in the election and that can be his undoing.
I hope the messaging duct tapes the actions of trump to the pain they feel.
No more deniability with the GOP magic words “Biden” “Democrats” etc.
Polls indicate attitudes are going more negative. Some of his biggest constituencies like rural areas (farmers) and older veterans & voters who need services will be very unhappy shortly— if they are not already. Then there is the fact that almost 30% of federal workers are veterans.