The Center for Medicare Advocacy filed an amicus brief this week urging a federal court to stop DOGE’s dismantling of the Social Security Administration (SSA). CMA, along with the Medicare Rights Center, submitted the brief in a legal challenge brought by disability rights groups against SSA, DOGE, and Elon Musk as the “de facto head of DOGE.”
The amicus brief explains that a properly functioning SSA is critical to the effective operation of Medicare because of how the two programs interact. SSA handles eligibility and enrollment for Medicare, it administers Medicare’s monthly premiums, and it plays an especially critical role for beneficiaries with low incomes by assisting with programs that reduce out-of-pocket medical costs. It is thus impossible to threaten the infrastructure of Social Security without also threatening the infrastructure of Medicare.
Service problems and prolonged delays at SSA severely harm disabled people who rely on Medicare for access to health care. Delays in Medicare coverage often mean forgoing costly medical care, leading to worse health outcomes, sometimes with life-or-death consequences. The amicus brief highlights the story of a Connecticut beneficiary with epilepsy and a thyroid disorder who was forced to put off medical care for an extended period due to an SSA backlog that delayed her Medicare coverage.
The plaintiffs challenge DOGE’s erosion of SSA’s core services in the name of “efficiency.” Mass workforce reductions, policy changes that have led to overwhelmed field offices and telephone lines, crashing of SSA’s website, and the dissolution of the agency’s Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity, are just some of the actions that are burdening people with disabilities. With SSA already operating at a 50-year staffing low before the Trump Administration took office, DOGE’s workforce cuts and other policies have pushed the agency over the edge. People with disabilities are disproportionately impacted, in part because they are more likely to rely on the availability of in-person assistance at SSA. Under public pressure, SSA just announced a reversal of its plan to curtail phone services, but it still must reverse the many other harmful policies it is undertaking on the pretext of rooting out “fraud and waste,” such as radical workforce reductions.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the American Association of People with Disabilities, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, the National Federation of the Blind, Deaf Equality, the Massachusetts Senior Action Council, and several individuals with disabilities. The court has requested briefing on the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction, and may soon order a hearing.
- Read the amicus brief here.
- Read the Complaint in American Association of People with Disabilities v. Dudek here.
- Listen to the “Post Reports” podcast: Long waits, website crashes: Social Security is breaking down
- More information on the lawsuit, brought by Justice in Aging and Brown Goldstein & Levy LLP, is available here.
April 10, 2025 – A. Bers