Elon is coming for social security

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If it turns out that 10% or more of social security payments are fraudulent, wouldn’t canceling these payments massively strengthen the staying power of social security for the rest of us?

There are so many front-end checks and retrospective audits (real audits) that what he's alluding to is absurd. And his laughing/crying emojis has become painfully corny. Some MAGA should let him know.

[Anonymous]

I don't blame them for not knowing COBOL. Most software engineers don't.

I do blame them for accepting clearly absurd returns uncritically and using them as a propaganda win.

[Anonymous]

Even one fraudulent welfare check is too many. I think we can all agree with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If it turns out that 10% or more of social security payments are fraudulent, wouldn’t canceling these payments massively strengthen the staying power of social security for the rest of us?

You think 10% of 1.5 trillion paid out each year is fraud? Prove it.

[Anonymous]

Elon thinks 80% of payments are fraudulent. That’s how dumb he is

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even one fraudulent welfare check is too many. I think we can all agree with that.

Errors and fraud will exist in any system. What percentage do you think is acceptable 1-2%?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't blame them for not knowing COBOL. Most software engineers don't.

I do blame them for accepting clearly absurd returns uncritically and using them as a propaganda win.

They deliberately misled. They knew the values were a coding issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't blame them for not knowing COBOL. Most software engineers don't.

I do blame them for accepting clearly absurd returns uncritically and using them as a propaganda win.

They deliberately misled. They knew the values were a coding issue.

These statements are just to get the Republican base ruled up, so they will be ok when they're social security payments are also cut.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If it turns out that 10% or more of social security payments are fraudulent, wouldn’t canceling these payments massively strengthen the staying power of social security for the rest of us?

There are so many front-end checks and retrospective audits (real audits) that what he's alluding to is absurd. And his laughing/crying emojis has become painfully corny. Some MAGA should let him know.

Maybe Elon is not too impressed with the controls and oversight that he has seen at other agencies so far. Let’s see what he can uncover when looking at Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Prediction: The DOGE crew will find a lot of payments that shouldn’t have been made. Good for all of us except the ones with hands in the cookie jar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He’s not wrong. I’m glad to see this finally cleaned up.

It is much more complicated than that. Some of these people in the database are being counted twice because they changed social security numbers and the old number was not labeled as dead, but they are labeled as dead under their most recent SSN. Some people are not registered in the DMF (death master file) because they do not have a death certificate, the records do not exist (or were discarded) since they died in the 1930's or 1940's. Much of this information has nothing to do with the SSA processes or procedures. People also receive survivors benefits from their dead spouses and I'm sure there are many people in this list that are long dead, but had a younger spouse who is still alive. Many people can be incorrectly categorized in this count depending on how the data was pulled. Less than 1% of social security benefit payments are fraudulent and there is a very real risk of harm to many elderly people with the current approach. They will literally kill seniors if they start randomly cutting off social security payment that they believe to be fraudulent. People will become homeless, die from being unable to afford their medication, or unable to pay for food. You cannot responsibly evaluate SSN database records over a short period of time. 40% of seniors get more than half of their income from social security payments. This poorly conceived agenda to eliminate alleged "fraud" will destroy peoples lives if apply the move fast and break things ethos to the social security payment system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even one fraudulent welfare check is too many. I think we can all agree with that.

Yes, no one disagrees with that in theory, but the real question is what is the appropriate ratio of false positives. How many people is it appropriate to incorrectly identify as fraudulent and cancel their payments, when they are actually legit beneficiaries? is the appropriate ratio 1:1 one person incorrectly canceled for every one case of fraud identified? 10 people incorrectly canceled for every case of fraud? Databases with millions of people are never 100% accurate and you need to come up with a reasonable threshold that identifies fraud while minimizing harm to legitimate beneficiaries. For example, a screening tool ithat s 90% accurate at identifying fraudulent payments and 99% accurate at identifying legitimate payments. Assuming a 1% fraud rate, I will get the following results out of a million beneficiaries. 980,100 people (true negative) 9,900 people (false positive), 1,000 people (false negative), 9,000 people (true positive). Even if my system is highly accurate I still end up impacting many people who did nothing wrong. In this scenario, 52.4% of the people on the suspected fraud list are not actually fraud. Do we really want to cut all these peoples payments off and cause them to get evicted or die from not being able to afford their medication? We could evaluate this list of people but it would take years to do this in a responsible way that ensures very few people are hurt by this process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If it turns out that 10% or more of social security payments are fraudulent, wouldn’t canceling these payments massively strengthen the staying power of social security for the rest of us?

There are so many front-end checks and retrospective audits (real audits) that what he's alluding to is absurd. And his laughing/crying emojis has become painfully corny. Some MAGA should let him know.

Maybe Elon is not too impressed with the controls and oversight that he has seen at other agencies so far. Let’s see what he can uncover when looking at Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Prediction: The DOGE crew will find a lot of payments that shouldn’t have been made. Good for all of us except the ones with hands in the cookie jar.

He hasn't found a single dime of fraud yet. And your prediction is asinine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He’s laying the groundwork to halt social security checks with a new conspiracy that tens of millions of beneficiaries are actually dead:

Alrighty. Alrighty. What will the inhabitants of The Village say now. Florida and Arizona your baby boy Elon is coming for your pocketbook

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even one fraudulent welfare check is too many. I think we can all agree with that.

No, that’s stupid.

Jesus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even one fraudulent welfare check is too many. I think we can all agree with that.

Yes, no one disagrees with that in theory, but the real question is what is the appropriate ratio of false positives. How many people is it appropriate to incorrectly identify as fraudulent and cancel their payments, when they are actually legit beneficiaries? is the appropriate ratio 1:1 one person incorrectly canceled for every one case of fraud identified? 10 people incorrectly canceled for every case of fraud? Databases with millions of people are never 100% accurate and you need to come up with a reasonable threshold that identifies fraud while minimizing harm to legitimate beneficiaries. For example, a screening tool ithat s 90% accurate at identifying fraudulent payments and 99% accurate at identifying legitimate payments. Assuming a 1% fraud rate, I will get the following results out of a million beneficiaries. 980,100 people (true negative) 9,900 people (false positive), 1,000 people (false negative), 9,000 people (true positive). Even if my system is highly accurate I still end up impacting many people who did nothing wrong. In this scenario, 52.4% of the people on the suspected fraud list are not actually fraud. Do we really want to cut all these peoples payments off and cause them to get evicted or die from not being able to afford their medication? We could evaluate this list of people but it would take years to do this in a responsible way that ensures very few people are hurt by this process.

Your nuanced explanation with its ethical considerations will be lost on most of this audience. They don't understand that knowledge building takes place over time. You can't come in with a high IQ (?!?!) and Red Bull and some code and expect to make sense of complex systems in a matter of weeks or months. They want simple systems with simple solutions. Nevermind that they expect their own situation to be appreciated for its complexity.

Btw, thank you for this explanation.