United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Representative,
On behalf of the millions of members and supporters of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, I urge you to ensure that agencies supporting older Americans are adequately funded and staffed in any year-end funding package. We are especially concerned about funding for the Social Security Administration (SSA), the Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and programs administered under the Older Americans Act (OAA). Members of the National Committee come from all walks of life and every political persuasion. What unites them is their passion for protecting and strengthening Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the other programs that are so vitally important to older Americans.
The Social Security Administration, responsible for administering the basic income security programs critical to older Americans and to millions of working families, is facing dire conditions. Already operating at a 50-year staffing low, it is now facing a cut of 7,000 employees – twelve percent of its workforce. Employees with the most years of experience implementing the intricacies of the Social Security Act are being pressured to accept early retirement or risk dismissal. And probationary workers, those at the early stages of training, are also facing relocation and retraining if they are not fired outright. It takes years to fully train SSA staff to implement the law correctly – the proposed firings will inevitably leave the Agency with a hollowed-out workforce incapable of providing the level of customer service American workers have earned and paid-for through their payroll tax contributions. These assaults on SSA come at a time when workloads are growing as 10,000 baby boomers turn age 65 every day.
The Social Security Administration serves an extremely vulnerable population of older and disabled Americans. They are among the least likely segments of our society to be able to conduct important financial business online. This is especially true as these vulnerable citizens continue to be targeted by online scammers. SSA field offices are already operating on an “appointment only” basis. Closing field offices, some of which have already been announced and others which will be inevitable as leases are terminated and staffing levels are slashed, will force older or disabled customers to travel increasingly longer distances for an in-person meeting with the remaining field office staff. Instead of making the SSA ‘more efficient’, such drastic changes are tantamount to a denial of service, and will make it increasingly difficult for Americans who have worked hard their entire lives to claim the benefits they have earned.
In addition to the impact of slashing funding for SSA directly on the programs that provide income security to older and disabled Americans and their families, starving the Agency of resources also has a direct effect on their ability to access their health benefits through Medicare. The potential impacts on Medicare include: increased delays for individuals applying for Medicare or Social Security Disability Insurance-Medicare for the first time; potential delays in premium deductions, delays in correcting errors in premium payments (whether by the individual or the Agency) or complete lapses in Medicare premium payments for individuals who have their premiums deducted from their Social Security checks; difficulties in enrollment for Medicare premium subsidies, which will leave low-income beneficiaries unable to access the health care they are entitled to; and extended delays in appeals’ decisions relating to Medicare.
Downsizing an agency experiencing consistently increasing workloads as our population ages is counterproductive and undermines SSA’s ability to achieve its mission. Achieving this downsizing through indiscriminate cuts to staffing and field offices is irresponsible. If an agency is overstaffed, its structure should be carefully considered and redesigned to operate efficiently and accurately, with appropriate input from Congress exercising its constitutional responsibilities. It should not be subject to downsizing ‘by chainsaw’, randomly cutting staff and offices with apparently little consideration for the impact on customers. This is especially true in the case of Social Security, where over 230 million workers are contributing with every paycheck not only to provide income security for themselves and their families in the case of retirement, death or disability, but also to cover the cost of administering these critical programs.
Recent actions by SSA and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) not only create chaos among staff and the public but they also may be counterproductive if the goal is to achieve savings or root out fraud. One recent example, the cancellation of contracts providing for Enumeration at Birth (EAB) and Electronic Death Records (EDR) and the subsequent rescission of the contract cancellation in one state, Maine, is illustrative. The latter contract provides for electronic filing of death records by funeral homes, which is designed to quickly and efficiently notify SSA when a Social Security beneficiary dies. If one of the Administration’s goals is to ensure that everyone receiving Social Security checks is alive, eliminating the easiest way for deaths to be reported makes no sense.
SSA already operates extremely efficiently, with costs totaling less than one-half of one percent of benefits paid – much lower than private insurance companies that provide a fraction of the services. Unfortunately, SSA has been starved of resources for far too long, resulting in significant and growing backlogs of work, especially in the disability offices where an estimated 30,000 Americans died in 2023 alone waiting for disability decisions. Congress should be adding resources to this beleaguered agency, allowing it to upgrade its technology and provide the customer service the American people deserve – not allowing this critical lifeline for older Americans and their families to be demolished.
In addition to providing adequate funding for the Social Security Administration, we urge you to give equal consideration to the full range of programs relied upon by older Americans. Workloads are growing at the Department of Health and Human Services’ Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), as well as at extremely important and popular programs administered under the Older American’s Act (OAA). CMS must be adequately funded to support basic health care and long-term services and supports, and adequate financial support must be provided for OAA programs such as home delivered meals (also known as “Meals on Wheels”) and congregate meals, senior centers, in-home services, transportation, legal services, elder abuse prevention and caregiver support. OAA services are essential in helping to allow vulnerable older adults to age in place rather than languishing in expensive nursing homes. These programs are also under unprecedented attack and it is the responsibility of Congress to ensure their continued strength and vitality.
Therefore, the National Committee urges you to VOTE NO on any appropriations legislation for the balance of fiscal year 2025 that does not ensure that the Social Security Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and programs administered under the Older Americans Act are adequately funded and staffed.
Sincerely,
Max Richtman
President and CEO