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The whole thing is one giant trap of playing the game right, or falling through the giant cracks never to be seen again. Worse than that, all the means testing

The whole thing is one giant trap of playing the game right, or falling through the giant cracks never to be seen again. Worse than that, all the means testing and adjudications and determinations are actually /expensive/ - mountains of paperwork and appeals and this and that and the other all because the US is simple obsessed that someone, somewhere, might be getting something they don't deserve. (Without, ever, of course, facing that there are a lot of people getting what they didn't work for, they aren't generally trying to scrape by on a disability check or some unemployment though)

paulryanrogers 4y ago
We can't have nice things because of massive fraud. There is always tension between ease of receiving services and those looking to exploit the benefit. We can and should do better, but it cannot be perfect.
- TylerE 4y ago
  Which still happens? If people think TSA is theater…
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > We can’t have nice things because of massive fraud. Creating multiple separate bureaucracies, often with similar functions, creates more fraud vulnerabilities and more cost to preventing fraud of any given type. Our system is not designed to prevent fraud, but to enable it.
  - survirtual 4y ago
    Yes, exactly. Simplicity is what prevents fraud, not more complexity. Our systems need to be fundamentally redesigned for simplicity at the core.
    - Gibbon1 4y ago
      Comment from a heretic economist was that in the US you have gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over raising capital gains a few percent or the marginal tax rates for people with seriously enough income. And yet for low income people the loss of benefits that comes with earning a bit more money can by on the order of 40%.
      - survirtual 4y ago
        Whether intentional or not, the system is really good at keeping poor people poor and stuck, and rich people richer and mobile. It is anti-human. Some metaphors of demon-lords with hordes of indentured servants come to mind. The servants bound in fiery chains mucking through tar, and the demon-lords flying around with fiery wings between castles. Won’t take many more steps for that imagery to be real. It would seem making money our collective master may have had some unintended consequences.
- bobkazamakis 4y ago
  > We can't have nice things because of massive fraud. There is always tension between ease of receiving services and those looking to exploit the benefit. Massive? Source?
  - scarmig 4y ago
    Imagine the government put a giant bowl full of money in front of every city hall, and said that you should feel free to take from it if you're starving for food. It's enforced by the honor system. This system is extremely easy to use and efficient in delivering funds. How long does the bowl last, and what proportion of funds go to the intended recipients? Obviously, not long and not much, so we build systems around the bowl of money to prevent fraud. These systems inherently cost money, making it less efficient, and reduce ease of use, meaning people who genuinely need the money have a much harder time accessing it. SSDI in particular is rather infamous in that it's rife with fraud[0] but also extremely difficult for the genuinely disabled to utilize[1], to the point where it's pretty accurate to say that the SSA is willfully blind to people in genuine need. The article we're all talking about is an example of that. [0] https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/06/rogues-gallery-social-security-fraudsters-jillian-kay-melchior/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/06/rogues-gallery-social... [1] https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/lawsuits-lay-out-accusations-of-fraud-within-social-security-disability-program https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/lawsuits-lay-out-accusa...
    - Avshalom 4y ago
      So what you've done here is invent a hypothetical, state by fiat that it would end poorly, then used that complete fiction to argue that we build systems to prevent fraud then point to massive fraud in the system we built to prevent the fraud that you stated we need to build to prevent it. Like I dunno, maybe if the thing we're doing recursively fails to work we could try the other thing for a bit and check.
      - scarmig 4y ago
        I'm pretty sure you don't actually reject the outcome of my hypothetical. And, yes, fraud is endemic, we try lots of systems, and some work better than others. Building ones that attempt to satisfy multiple constraints at once makes things harder.
- int_19h 4y ago
  At the very least, you shouldn't be spending more on gatekeeping to prevent fraud than you'd lose to said fraud. I'm pretty sure that our system is way over that line.
- lostapathy 4y ago
  It's not all because of fraud. There's also a lot of crossover between the people defining the programs and the people administering the programs. So programs get rules written in a way that the software from the firm they are close to can handle it, but are hard for their competition to work with. None of it is actually defined with the taxpayer and beneficiary's interests at heart. (Source: worked for an agency in the space and saw it first hand).
- DanBC 4y ago
  Bit odd that the US tolerates, even celebrates, massive tax avoidance but spends a lot of money on preventing relatively small sums of benefit fraud.
- thewebcount 4y ago
  This doesn’t seem correct to me. We can’t have nice things because of fear of massive fraud. I’ve heard that programs like SSDI have around a 1% fraud rate. I’ve also heard they deny something like 70% of claims on first application and 90% on appeal. That seems like way too much denial for a system that’s doing pretty good fraud-wise.
  - scarmig 4y ago
    A high false positive rate doesn't imply a low false negative rate. If you're building a well-functioning system you have to consider trade-offs between the two, but a badly-functioning system can achieve both high false positives and high false negatives.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

paulryanrogers 4y ago

We can't have nice things because of massive fraud. There is always tension between ease of receiving services and those looking to exploit the benefit. We can and should do better, but it cannot be perfect.

TylerE 4y ago
Which still happens? If people think TSA is theater…
dragonwriter 4y ago
> We can’t have nice things because of massive fraud. Creating multiple separate bureaucracies, often with similar functions, creates more fraud vulnerabilities and more cost to preventing fraud of any given type. Our system is not designed to prevent fraud, but to enable it.
- survirtual 4y ago
  Yes, exactly. Simplicity is what prevents fraud, not more complexity. Our systems need to be fundamentally redesigned for simplicity at the core.
  - Gibbon1 4y ago
    Comment from a heretic economist was that in the US you have gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over raising capital gains a few percent or the marginal tax rates for people with seriously enough income. And yet for low income people the loss of benefits that comes with earning a bit more money can by on the order of 40%.
    - survirtual 4y ago
      Whether intentional or not, the system is really good at keeping poor people poor and stuck, and rich people richer and mobile. It is anti-human. Some metaphors of demon-lords with hordes of indentured servants come to mind. The servants bound in fiery chains mucking through tar, and the demon-lords flying around with fiery wings between castles. Won’t take many more steps for that imagery to be real. It would seem making money our collective master may have had some unintended consequences.
bobkazamakis 4y ago
> We can't have nice things because of massive fraud. There is always tension between ease of receiving services and those looking to exploit the benefit. Massive? Source?
- scarmig 4y ago
  Imagine the government put a giant bowl full of money in front of every city hall, and said that you should feel free to take from it if you're starving for food. It's enforced by the honor system. This system is extremely easy to use and efficient in delivering funds. How long does the bowl last, and what proportion of funds go to the intended recipients? Obviously, not long and not much, so we build systems around the bowl of money to prevent fraud. These systems inherently cost money, making it less efficient, and reduce ease of use, meaning people who genuinely need the money have a much harder time accessing it. SSDI in particular is rather infamous in that it's rife with fraud[0] but also extremely difficult for the genuinely disabled to utilize[1], to the point where it's pretty accurate to say that the SSA is willfully blind to people in genuine need. The article we're all talking about is an example of that. [0] https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/06/rogues-gallery-social-security-fraudsters-jillian-kay-melchior/ https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/06/rogues-gallery-social... [1] https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/lawsuits-lay-out-accusations-of-fraud-within-social-security-disability-program https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/lawsuits-lay-out-accusa...
  - Avshalom 4y ago
    So what you've done here is invent a hypothetical, state by fiat that it would end poorly, then used that complete fiction to argue that we build systems to prevent fraud then point to massive fraud in the system we built to prevent the fraud that you stated we need to build to prevent it. Like I dunno, maybe if the thing we're doing recursively fails to work we could try the other thing for a bit and check.
    - scarmig 4y ago
      I'm pretty sure you don't actually reject the outcome of my hypothetical. And, yes, fraud is endemic, we try lots of systems, and some work better than others. Building ones that attempt to satisfy multiple constraints at once makes things harder.
int_19h 4y ago
At the very least, you shouldn't be spending more on gatekeeping to prevent fraud than you'd lose to said fraud. I'm pretty sure that our system is way over that line.
lostapathy 4y ago
It's not all because of fraud. There's also a lot of crossover between the people defining the programs and the people administering the programs. So programs get rules written in a way that the software from the firm they are close to can handle it, but are hard for their competition to work with. None of it is actually defined with the taxpayer and beneficiary's interests at heart. (Source: worked for an agency in the space and saw it first hand).
DanBC 4y ago
Bit odd that the US tolerates, even celebrates, massive tax avoidance but spends a lot of money on preventing relatively small sums of benefit fraud.
thewebcount 4y ago
This doesn’t seem correct to me. We can’t have nice things because of fear of massive fraud. I’ve heard that programs like SSDI have around a 1% fraud rate. I’ve also heard they deny something like 70% of claims on first application and 90% on appeal. That seems like way too much denial for a system that’s doing pretty good fraud-wise.
- scarmig 4y ago
  A high false positive rate doesn't imply a low false negative rate. If you're building a well-functioning system you have to consider trade-offs between the two, but a badly-functioning system can achieve both high false positives and high false negatives.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]