Social Benefits (Written by Marcella Lewis)

Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare are all social benefit programs in the United States. Each serves a different purpose, but they’re also critically linked to each other. Our current administration is putting all three at risk, and that is leaving citizens who reply upon these programs at risk of great harm. 

Social Security was established in the 1930’s during the Great Depression to offer social insurance to combat poverty and unemployment that come with old age, as well as the burdens faced by widows and their children. Benefits have expanded to also cover the disabled under SSI and SSDI. Depending on which type of disability is used (SSI or SSDI) those benefits usually attach to Medicaid or Medicare healthcare coverage, respectively. Nationwide, the Social Security Administration (SSA) makes payments to around 70 million Americans.

Medicaid is a federally funded health insurance program run by states and offered to individuals with low income and limited resources, including the disabled. People receiving SSI disability qualify for Medicaid. Medicare is federally funded as well, and available to those aged 65 or over as well as those under 65 who have qualifying disabilities. 

In Ferry County, 30.6% of the population is over 65. Disabled persons make up about 28% of the population of Ferry County and 17.8% of the disabled population is under age 65. Just over 17% of Ferry County is living in poverty (countyhealthinsights.org and census.gov). Seeing these figures, it stands to reason that many people in Ferry County rely on social benefits; these are people who have either retired from the workforce, are unable to work due to disabilities, or not working due to a lack of employment opportunities. Without these critical programs, or with significant cuts, quality of life is likely to naturally worsen.  

What is happening to put these programs at risk? It began on January 20, 2025, when President Trump was sworn back into office for a second term. On that date, Trump issued executive order 14158, establishing and implementing the president’s Department of Government Efficiency, more commonly known as DOGE. Headed by an un-elected individual, Elon Musk, DOGE is tasked with reducing government spending through finding and stopping fraud and waste. By now, you’ve probably heard multiple stories of DOGE in the news, including legal proceedings that question their scope and their access to proprietary information. During the work of DOGE, thousands of federal workers have lost their jobs and multiple agencies have been shuttered. Musk is on record as stating the following on his social medial platform, X: “We need to stop government spending like a drunken sailor on fraud & waste or America is gonna go bankrupt. That does mean a lot of grifters will lose their grift and complain loudly about it. Too bad. Deal with it.” The term “grifter” is derogatory and defined by Cambridge Dictionary as someone who gets money dishonestly by tricking people, or a con artist. 

Specific to Social Security, DOGE has affected the SSA by downsizing through workforce reduction of 12.2% with talk of more workforce cuts to come, office closures, phone service cutbacks and starting on April 15 required in-person visits instead of over the telephone for some prospective beneficiaries to apply in order to prove identity. Those required in-person visits can be especially problematic for people living in rural areas such as Ferry County, as well as disabled people who cannot easily travel and those lacking in transportation. This excludes SSDI, SSI, and Medicare applications. Rich Couture, President of American Federation of Government Employees’ SSA committee has publicly expressed his grave concern that the cutbacks will lead to increased workload in an already overloaded system, prompting employees to leave, and causing a negative feedback loop and the “death spiral” of SSA. The SSA website has also reportedly crashed multiple times in recent weeks, while DOGE has been investigating, and DOGE is recommending cutting SSA IT programs by 50%. Thousands of customers have been unable to log into their online accounts, and when they do, some find missing information. Millions of SS recipients recently received erroneous notifications of suspension of benefits. Announced on Friday, April 11, Federal News Network reported that SSA communications are to move to Musk’s platform, X. “The agency will be using X to communicate to the press and the public—formerly known as Twitter,” Linda Kerr-Davis said, the SSA Midwest Regional Commissioner stated. “This will become our communication mechanism.” Of note, to see posts on X, users must have an account for the social media platform. This will leave a large portion of the public unable to receive updates about Social Security, as many social security beneficiaries are elderly and lack the technical skills and others simply do not desire to sign up for an account.

It’s important to take a step back in time to June 2024, when then-candidate Trump told supporters at a campaign rally “as President, I will not cut one penny from Social Security or Medicare.” He made an almost identical statement on social media in July 2024, “I will not cut one penny from Social Security or Medicare and I will not raise the retirement age by one day.” Only time will tell if the last part of that, about retirement age, is true. 

In February of this year, DOGE began digging into Medicare and Medicaid, reportedly looking for fraud and waste. Without offering evidence, Musk recently posted on his website, X, that Medicare is “where the big money fraud is happening.” Trump has publicly voiced his approval and intent to “cut waste and fraud within our Country’s most expensive government agency, which is a third of our Nation’s Healthcare spend, and a quarter of our National Budget.”  Medicare and Medicaid are closely linked to Social Security. All three programs are actively being investigated by DOGE. Cuts to one or all will affect thousands upon thousands of people who rely upon them – people who are not guilty of fraud. 

Marcella Lewis is published novelist M. Lauryl Lewis and podcast host of “Social Injustice LET’S TALK ABOUT IT with Marcella.”