A probe that has been continuing for two years, so far, has just led federal authorities to make 68 arrests in Puerto Rico, having to do with fraudulent claims on disability insurance.
This, according to information from the U.S. Social Security Administration’s inspector general.
The inspector general from the U.S. Social Security Administration has stated that prosecutors have now also charged a former Social Security employee as well as three doctors with having taken part in assisting individuals in making false disability insurance claims. They worked to help individuals to falsely claim that they were too injured or sick to be able to work.
In return, the suspects were allegedly provided a certain portion of the disability insurance payments of the scammers.
Typically, the cuts that they received from the disability insurance payments ranged from $150 to $6,000. Among those who were charged, dozens included individuals who had actually made these fake claims. The arrests come on the heels of an investigation that had been conducted by the Wall Street Journal in 2011, which looked into unusual claims that were being made in Puerto Rico.
This case also draws attention to an increasing problem that the federal government is currently facing, which is the ballooning disability insurance payments within a program that has standards that are notoriously soft regarding the actual definition of what a disability actually is. For instance, in 2011, when the investigation began from the news paper giant, the federal payments in that program reached $190 billion.
It has been suggested that the reason that disability insurance payments have been growing as quickly as they have – now paying out to over 14 million Americans – is that it has become a sneaky safety net for individuals who are unable to find adequate jobs, but who desperately need to make an income, as the average annual payment is up to twice the income of employment at minimum wage. Another contributor to the growth is that the average age of the workforce is getting higher, and older individuals have a higher risk of experiencing health problems.
