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nancy altman
Medicare for All: Where We're Going and How We're Getting There
Health care should be available to everyone in America as a right—automatic and free of charge when we need it. Rich or poor, sick or healthy, old or young, no matter where you live, everyone should have high-quality health care.
Sep 04, 2026
Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from Nancy J. Altman's latest book, The Road to Medicare for All: A Call to Action (Routledge, 2026), published today and now available for purchase wherever quality books are sold. As the United States continues to spend substantially more on health care than other wealthy nations but with poorer health outcomes, Altman's book analyzes the dysfunction of the current system and sets forth the solution. "Medicare for All won’t happen without a fight," she argues, "but it is a fight we can win."
In the early morning hours of December 4, 2024, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was gunned down outside the Hilton Hotel in midtown Manhattan in New York City. The CEO was on his way to the health insurance company’s annual investor conference. The police found the words “Delay,” “Deny,” and “Depose” carved into bullet casings at the scene.
The public reaction was swift and overwhelming. People took to social media to describe stories of mothers, fathers, spouses, children, and friends who had died from treatable illnesses, dead because UnitedHealthcare or other health insurance companies had either denied the life-saving care doctors had prescribed to their loved ones or had endlessly delayed approval of the lifesaving treatment.
Physicians posted stories of the hours they spent on the phone, seeking to convince insurance companies of the necessity of the care. The providers detailed spending countless hours advocating for their patients to insurance company doctors who had little or no expertise in their area of medicine but with the power of literal life or death to authorize or deny payment for the prescribed treatment. The frustrated providers recounted incidents of being on hold for hours and transferred among insurance executives in what felt like perpetual loops.
The United States is an outlier. Its health care is the most expensive in the industrialized world, while its outcomes rank at or near the bottom
When the treating physicians finally got through and were told they had to schedule a time to talk, the time for the so-called peer-to-peer conversation was solely at the convenience of the insurance company doctor, with no concern for the schedule of the treating physician. One doctor talked about a particular insurance company that told doctors they would get a call back but were not told when or from what number. They were told, though, that if they didn’t answer, the claim would be denied.
Then came the denials. UnitedHealthcare and other insurance companies are not required to disclose their denial rates, but anecdotal evidence and lawsuits suggest that the rates are high. And denial is a life and death matter. Virtually all treatments are prohibitively expensive without insurance. One TikTok contributor described receiving six months of chemotherapy for her dangerously advanced, stage 4 cancer, only to receive a letter from her insurer saying it would no longer pay for the treatment. She explained in her post that the treatment cost $15,000 every three weeks and the alternatives she had tried before starting the current regimen had done nothing. Only the current treatment prescribed by her oncologist worked.
America’s Outlier Healthcare System: Expensive, Wasteful, Complicated, Deficient
The delay and denial of lifesaving care doesn’t happen in other wealthy countries the way it does here. The United States is an outlier. Its health care is the most expensive in the industrialized world, while its outcomes rank at or near the bottom… Thirty million Americans—almost 10 percent of the population—have no health insurance whatsoever. Millions more are underinsured. Though they have health insurance, it does not cover the care they need at a cost they can afford. Even those with supposedly adequate coverage often have high deductibles, causing them to delay care until their health issues are too severe to ignore. The problem is that in the United States, health care is implicitly treated like a commodity, like the latest iPhone or simply a service, like plumbing or electrical work in a home. Of course, health care is not just another commodity or service. It is literally a life-and-death matter.
Like our court system, police and fire departments, public libraries, and our public schools, high-quality health care should be available to everyone in America as a right—automatic and free of charge when we need it.
Unlike the government, which has the power to tax, can control its currency, and is not going out of business, companies can only stay in business if they turn a profit. That means that health insurance corporations must ensure that they don’t pay out more in benefits than they collect in premiums, and the premiums can’t be too large or their customers will go elsewhere. To make the numbers work and earn a large enough profit to keep shareholders happy, these companies must seek to entice those who are healthy and therefore not in need of health care, by offering benefits like gym memberships. They must carefully screen to cherry-pick the healthiest of the population and avoid covering those likely to need expensive care. If their enrollees do get sick, insurance companies can restrict what treatment patients are able to get by limiting the doctors and hospitals that are in-network. The companies can delay or even deny prescribed treatments, if they are expensive and supposedly uncertain of success, by requiring pre-authorizations. Indeed, insurance companies refused to insure anyone with pre-existing conditions, such as birth defects, pregnancy, and job-related injuries, until the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act prohibited that discriminatory practice designed to reduce expenses and bolster profits.
In short, private companies must cover their costs to remain in business. That too often translates, in the case of health insurance corporations, to denying payment for doctor-prescribed medical care. Like our court system, police and fire departments, public libraries, and our public schools, high-quality health care should be available to everyone in America as a right—automatic and free of charge when we need it. Rich or poor, sick or healthy, old or young, no matter where you live, everyone should have high-quality health care.
The Obvious Solution to Our Broken Healthcare System
The way for health insurance in the United States to be universal, affordable, and efficient is to make the federal government the insurer. Insurance is most cost-efficient and reliable when the risks can be spread across as broad a population as possible and when people cannot delay purchasing the insurance until the moment people know they are getting sick—a practice known as adverse selection. Only the national government has the power and ability to establish a nationwide, universal risk pool, with mandatory participation, making adverse selection impossible. Furthermore, when the federal government administers the insurance, overhead is minimized. Instead of high-paid CEOs wielding power over our health care, hardworking, modestly-paid civil servants are in charge. Instead of unaccountable private actors in control, federal employees, subject to transparency and oversight, are the administrators. Moreover, other costs, like advertising and marketing, are unnecessary.
Fundamentally, the government is not seeking a profit for shareholders or high salaries for executives. In addition, there is only one payer, producing more efficiency and less waste. Consequently, all of us, collectively through the government, can provide health care less expensively and more efficiently for everyone. [...] Profit should have no place in our healthcare system. Instead, there should be a single insurer that can pay for the most efficient care equitably and universally. We would spend less as a nation and have better health outcomes.
Profit should have no place in our healthcare system.
We know it works because an American institution has been paying for health care efficiently and fairly for over 60 years: Medicare. To be clear, the solution is definitely not the vastly inferior, misleadingly-named Medicare “Advantage.” […] The solution is traditional Medicare as it was designed and enacted in 1965, with it improved and expanded to everyone.
Medicare works. Americans overwhelmingly agree. After living with private health insurance or, worse, no health insurance at all, your 65th birthday is eye-opening. That birthday brings Medicare. Once you enroll in Medicare, you generally have no claims to fill out, no insurance companies to contact. It is comparatively simple.
The vision of Medicare for all is for everyone to have that simplicity and much, much more. In addition to expanding it to everyone, Medicare should be improved. Today, those with traditional Medicare who can afford supplemental private-insurance coverage (colloquially known as Medigap, because it fills in the gaps) generally must purchase it to control their costs. That will be in the rearview mirror under Improved Medicare for All. All premiums, co-pays, co-insurance, and deductibles should be eliminated.
The vision is for cradle to grave, comprehensive healthcare coverage for everyone in America, automatically. It means better protection for everyone at lower cost—including for those covered under today’s Medicare. Improved Medicare for All means going to the doctor of your choice, without first checking to see if your preferred practitioner is in your insurance network. With Improved Medicare for All, there is essentially one big network of virtually every doctor and hospital in America. The result? Guaranteed health care with the provider of your choice, anywhere you happen to be, without the stress of dealing with private insurance companies. […] So how do we make that vision a reality? Medicare provides protection to the grave. But not from the cradle. At least, not yet. We are the wealthiest nation in the entire world at the wealthiest moment in our history. We are much wealthier than we were in 1965, more than a half century ago, when we enacted Medicare for those aged 65 and older. We are much wealthier than we were in 1972, when we extended Medicare coverage to people with serious, work-limiting disabilities. Seniors and people with disabilities are the segments of our population who, on average, have the highest medical costs and the most frequent need for care. Covering the rest of us should be easy. The politics make it hard, but it is achievable. As the title of the book makes clear, we are on a journey.
With Improved Medicare for All, there is essentially one big network of virtually every doctor and hospital in America. The result? Guaranteed health care with the provider of your choice, anywhere you happen to be, without the stress of dealing with private insurance companies.
Every chapter contains aspects of the discussion of how we got here—the nation’s history of health care—in order to provide context for the following points: Chapter 2 explains that the nation was on a slow path toward a single-payer system (essentially Medicare for All) during the first three-quarters of the twentieth century despite the strong opposition of powerful forces. Then, though, as Chapter 3 details, the powerful forces became more organized and pro-active. They succeeded in stopping the push for Medicare for All in its tracks. Indeed, they did not just halt progress; they partly reversed it. Perhaps most damaging, mainstream Democratic political leaders lost sight of the destination. Opportunities were lost as a result. Chapter 4 explains that where we are now is a result of having failed to enact a single-payer system. It discusses the flaws and unsustainability of the current patchwork system. The chapter explains that Democratic leaders, in the face of the election of President Ronald Reagan almost a half century ago, gave up on the destination. That was unfortunate. It has led to where the nation finds itself today. Continuing down the current road, simply tinkering with the present system, is unsustainable. Exiting the current road and getting back on track is essential.
Chapter 5 explains what the right road is. It reminds us what our North Star was prior to 1972 and what it should be again. It lays out the vision of a single-payer Improved Medicare for All system. It also explains that questioning the affordability of Medicare for All is misguided. The correct questions are (1) since the new system will save money, how should we divvy up the savings; and (2) given the complete unsustainability of the current system, how can the nation afford not to enact Improved Medicare for All. Monied interests have prevailed for the last half century, but history is not destiny. Replacing our current Rube Goldberg-style, overly complicated, dysfunctional healthcare system with a straightforward, superior system of Improved Medicare for All won’t happen without determined effort. History teaches that the commercial health insurance industry fears losing its business and will fight every initiative that jeopardizes those profits. The pharmaceutical industry will fight any initiative that will cut its exorbitant profits. Historically, physicians and hospitals have opposed government-provided health insurance. Given the powerful forces arrayed against Improved Medicare for All, its failure so far to become the law of the land is not hard to understand. Indeed, because health care is so crucial to all of us, it is easy to convince us that we will lose, not gain, from Improved Medicare for All. It is not hard to scare us into thinking that it is something foreign, un-American, inconsistent with the nation’s values, and harmful for us as individuals.
Replacing our current Rube Goldberg-style, overly complicated, dysfunctional healthcare system with a straightforward, superior system of Improved Medicare for All won’t happen without determined effort.
The concluding three chapters answer all of these challenges and fears. They provide the tools, including a roadmap, to finally reach our destination. Chapter 6 highlights the politics and how a winning coalition can be forged. It discusses why the organizations that represent hospitals and physicians may be convinced to end their opposition to Improved Medicare for All and join the other supporters working to enact it. Whether that happens or not, it is crucial to understand that the forces arrayed against Improved Medicare for All have been defeated in the past and they can be defeated again. The response to the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO is but one example spotlighting that the American people are both united and ready. The answer lies in numbers, active involvement, and determination. To the extent the electorate is engaged and clear-eyed, victory is not only achievable; it is inevitable. Chapter 7 alerts supporters to at least some of the disinformation that opponents will use to stymie and depress those engaged in the effort. The chapter adopts the premise that forewarned is forearmed. Finally, Chapter 8 provides specific actions that readers may take to join the winning fight. Universal Health Care Is a Fight We Can and Must Win And a winning fight it will be.
It may appear that the worst time to engage in this fight is now, in the shadow of the November 2024 election, when Donald Trump was returned to office together with a Republican House of Representatives and Senate. The Supreme Court is controlled by conservative forces hostile to a domestically-active federal government, and the entire judiciary will be even more conservative after the first few years of a Trump presidency. Yet this is the perfect time.
As polarized as the American people currently are, we are overwhelmingly united in our support for Medicare, as well as Social Security. Expanding both programs can lead the way to re-unite the United States. Together, we will win. We must. Medicare for All won’t happen without a fight, but it is a fight we can win. It is a fight we must win. Our lives literally depend on it.
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Trump Lies That Medicare for All Would Cost ‘Entire Budget of the Whole Country’
As Trump-GOP healthcare cuts devastate millions, Yale experts have found that Medicare for All would save the US over $1 trillion and more than 114,000 lives per year.
Sep 02, 2026
US President Donald Trump railed against Medicare for All during an Oval Office event on Tuesday, falsely claiming the proposal would be prohibitively expensive and ineffective despite new research confirming it would save lives and cost significantly less than the corporate-dominated status quo.
The president's remarks came during an event touting his limited, voluntary, and secretive agreements with leading pharmaceutical companies, deals purportedly aimed at lowering drug prices. Trump again lied by claiming that his efforts are "much bigger" than Medicare for All, which would provide comprehensive health coverage to every person in the US for free at the point of service, eliminating premiums, copays, and deductibles.
Trump said that Medicare for All, which has not been tried at a national level in the US, "doesn't work," falsely claiming a single-payer system would cost "the entire budget of the whole country" and send taxes into the stratosphere.
Nancy Altman, president of the progressive advocacy group Social Security Works and author of the forthcoming book, The Road to Medicare for All: A Call to Action, told Common Dreams on Wednesday that "Trump is once again revealing that he lies about healthcare or is totally ignorant of it."
Total federal outlays were $7.04 trillion in 2025. According to a study published last month by Yale University researchers, a single-payer system like the one set out in Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) Medicare for All Act would save the US roughly $1 trillion per year in national healthcare expenditures, which totaled around $5.7 trillion last year. The finding was consistent with past research showing major savings under Medicare for All compared with the current privatized system.
"A universal healthcare system in the US would not require the country to spend more on healthcare," the Yale researchers wrote. "It would require it to spend less. Our results indicate that the existing budget is more than sufficient to cover everyone at lower total cost."
The study also found that Medicare for All would save more than 114,000 lives across the US each year by providing the tens of millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans with comprehensive coverage.
The researchers contrasted the life-saving impacts of a Medicare for All system with the deadly consequences of the unprecedented Medicaid cuts that Trump signed into law last summer. Experts at Yale and the University of Pennsylvania estimated that the sweeping Republican assault on Medicaid could cause more than 51,000 deaths annually as millions are kicked off the program.
"Numerous highly respected analyses show that improving Medicare and expanding it to everyone, with no premiums, copays, deductibles or coinsurance costs trillions of dollars less than what the nation now spends, while covering the entire population and saving lives," Altman of Social Security Works told Common Dreams. "The question isn't how will we pay for universal coverage, but how will we divvy up the savings."
The House version of the Medicare for All Act, led by Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), is cosponsored by a majority of the chamber's Democratic caucus—though it's opposed by the House Democratic leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York. The Senate version of the bill, led by Sanders, has 17 cosponsors.
"We already introduced the legislation. Now we need the political will to pass it," Jayapal said on Tuesday. "Healthcare is a human right. No one should go broke, or die, because they got sick."
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Bessent Admits Trump Tax Scam Offers 'Backdoor for Privatizing Social Security'
"Despite their repeated claims they wanted to protect Social Security, the Trump administration said the quiet part out loud," said one critic in response to the billionaire treasury secretary's candid comments.
Jul 30, 2025
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday admitted that a provision in Republicans' One Big Beautiful Bill Act is a mechanism for privatizing Social Security—something President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he won't do.
Speaking at a policy event hosted by the far-right news site Breitbart, Bessent touted the so-called "Trump accounts" available to all U.S. citizen children starting next July under the OBBBA signed by the president earlier this month.
"In a way, it is a backdoor way for privatizing Social Security," the billionaire former hedge fund manager said of the accounts. "Social Security is a defined benefit plan paid out—that to the extent that if all of a sudden these accounts grow, and you have in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for your retirement, that's a game-changer."
Responding to Bessent's admission, Tim Hogan—the Democratic National Committee senior adviser for messaging, mobilization, and strategy—said that the treasury secretary "just said the quiet part out loud: The administration is scheming to privatize Social Security."
"It wasn't enough to kick millions of people off their healthcare and take food away from hungry kids," Hogan added. "Trump is now coming after American seniors with a 'backdoor' scam to take away the benefits they earned. Democrats won't stand by as Trump screws over working families in order to give more handouts to billionaires."
House Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Richard Neal (D-Mass.) said in a statement: "Today, the treasury secretary said the quiet part out loud: Republicans' ultimate goal is to privatize Social Security, and there isn't a backdoor they won't try to make Wall Street's dream a reality. For everyone else though, it's yet another warning sign that they cannot be trusted to safeguard the program millions rely on and have paid into over a lifetime of work."
Nancy Altman, president of the advocacy group Social Security Works, mocked Trump's promises to preserve the key program upon which more than 70 million Americans rely—and called him out for eviscerating the Social Security Administration (SSA).
"So much for Donald Trump's campaign promise to protect Social Security," Altman said in a statement. "First, he gave Elon Musk the power to gut SSA. Now, Trump's treasury secretary has said the quiet part out loud. He is bragging about the administration's goal to privatize Social Security."
"First, they are undermining public confidence in Social Security by making false claims about fraud (which is virtually nonexistent) and wrecking the system's service to the public," Altman continued. "Then, once they have broken Social Security, they will say that Wall Street needs to come in and save it."
"That is a terrible idea," she added. "Unlike private savings, Social Security is a guaranteed earned benefit that you can't outlive. It has stood strong through wars, recessions, and pandemics. The American people have a message for Trump and Bessent: Keep Wall Street's hands off our Social Security!"
Alliance for Retired Americans executive director Richard Fiesta said that "Bessent let the cat out of the bag: This administration is coming for Social Security."
"We're not surprised—but we are alarmed because this administration has already taken multiple steps to weaken and dismantle Social Security," Fiesta added, highlighting the weakening of the SSA, false fraud claims, and "the massive tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations" under the OBBBA that experts say will hasten the Social Security Trust Fund's insolvency.
The progressive watchdog Accountable.US called Bessent's remarks "a shocking confession."
"Despite their repeated claims they wanted to protect Social Security, the Trump administration said the quiet part out loud: The Big Ugly Betrayal is a backdoor way to privatize Social Security," Accountable.US executive director Tony Carrk said in a statement.
"Once again the administration is risking the financial security of millions of Americans in order to protect a system rigged in the favor of big corporations and billionaires," Carrk added.
In another blow to Social Security recipients, the Trump administration is set to implement a new policy next month that is expected to further increase wait times for basic services. As Common Dreams reported Wednesday, starting in mid-August, SSA will no longer allow seniors to use their phones for routine tasks they've been able to perform for decades.
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Musk Berated for 'Absurd' Social Security Fraud Lies
"Elon and his all-male team lie about Social Security like other people chew gum," said one former head of the agency.
Mar 28, 2025
Elon Musk, the de facto head of the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, was berated anew Friday after insidiously tarring millions of Social Security recipients as "fraudsters"—a tactic critics called part of an orchestrated Republican scheme to destroy the vital earned benefits program.
Musk and seven DOGE staffers—all of them men—appeared on Fox News Thursday, where the world's richest person called the Trump administration's crusade to eviscerate the federal government under pretext of improving efficiency "the biggest revolution in the government since the original revolution" in 1776.
The DOGE staffers repeated unfounded claims that Social Security is riddled with fraud; that in some cases, 40% of calls to the Social Security Administration phone center are fraudulent; and that millions of people aged 120 and older are registered with SSA.
Acknowledging that DOGE's wrecking-ball approach to government reform is getting "a lot of complaints along the way," Musk said: "You know who complains the loudest, and with the most amount of fake righteous indignation? The fraudsters."
Musk's comments echoed those of billionaire U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who suggested on a podcast last week that only a "fraudster" would complain about a missed Social Security check.
Responding to what she called Musk's "absurd claim," Nancy Altman, president of the advocacy group Social Security Works (SSW), said Friday that "the truth is that Social Security has a fraud rate of 0.00625%, far lower than private sector retirement programs."
"It is Musk and DOGE who are inviting in fraudsters," she continued. "Scammers are already rushing in to take advantage of the confusion created by DOGE's service cuts."
Critics have denounced the Trump administration for sowing chaos at SSA and other federal agencies by planning to lay off thousands of workers, slashc spending, and implement other disruptive policies. Cuts in SSA phone services were reportedly carried out in response to a direct request from the White House, which claimed it is simply working to eliminate "waste, fraud, and abuse."
"The truth is that Social Security has a fraud rate of 0.00625%, far lower than private sector retirement programs."
This "DOGE-manufactured chaos," as Altman calls it, has already led to the SSA website crashing several times in recent weeks and hold times of as long as 4-5 hours for those calling the agency.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) on Thursday noted that while it would be clearly illegal for President Donald Trump and DOGE to cut Social Security benefits without congressional authorization, there are other ways for the administration to hamstring the agency.
Referencing a new in-person verification rule that was delayed and partly rolled back this week, Warren said:
Say a 66-year-old man qualifies for Social Security. Say he calls the helpline to apply, but he's told about a new DOGE rule, so he has to go online or in person. He can't drive. He has trouble with the website, so he waits until his niece can get a day off to take him to the local office, but DOGE closed that office, so they have to drive two hours to get to the next closest office. When they get there, there are only two people staffing a 50-person line, so he doesn't even make it to the front of the line before the office closes and he has to come back. Let's assume it takes him three months to straighten this out, and he misses a total of $5,000 in benefits checks, which, by law, he will never get back.
"This scenario is a backdoor way Musk and Trump could cut Social Security," the senator added. "That's what I'm fighting to prevent."
Democratic lawmakers and others argue that the Trump administration's approach is "a prelude to privatizing Social Security and handing it over to private equity," as Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said earlier this week.
"Improving Social Security doesn't start with shuttering the offices that handle modernization, anti-fraud activities, and civil rights violations," the senator asserted. "It doesn't start with indiscriminately firing or buying out thousands of workers, and it doesn't start with restricting customer service over the phone and drawing up plans to close field and regional offices."
These and other moves, including the nomination of financial services executive Frank Bisignano as SSA commissioner, belie Trump's claim that he is "not touching" Social Security, upon which 70 million Americans—including nearly 9 in 10 people aged 65 or older—rely for their earned benefits.
So do Trump and Musk's own words. The president has called Social Security a "scam" and Musk recently referred to it as "the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time."
"No one who thinks Social Security is a criminal Ponzi scheme should be anywhere near our earned Social Security benefits or the sensitive data we provide the Social Security Administration," said SSW's Altman.
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'Despicable': Trump Official Threatens Total Social Security Shutdown Over DOGE Ruling
"Rather than comply with a lawful court order, he wants to see millions of families, retirees, and disabled individuals go hungry, suffer, and potentially lose their homes all to curry favor with anti-worker billionaires."
Mar 21, 2025
Defenders of the Social Security Administration on Friday blasted acting Commissioner Leland Dudek's threat to shut down the agency in response to a federal judge cutting off the Department of Government Efficiency's access to SSA data.
U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander wrote Thursday that "the DOGE team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA." She issued a temporary restraining order targeting affiliates of the government-gutting entity created by Republican President Donald Trump and led by Big Tech CEO Elon Musk, the richest person on the planet.
While the advocacy and labor groups behind the lawsuit celebrated the order from Hollander—who was appointed to the District of Maryland by former President Barack Obama—Dudek responded to the ruling with a threat to shut down the agency entirely.
"My anti-fraud team would be DOGE affiliates. My IT staff would be DOGE affiliates," Dudek told Bloomberg. "As it stands, I will follow it exactly and terminate access by all SSA employees to our IT systems."
"Now, like a child who didn't get his way, he is threatening to shut down Social Security."
Dudek—who is leading the SSA until the U.S. Senate decides whether to confirm Trump's nominee, former Fiserv CEO Frank Bisignano—said he would ask the judge to immediately clarify her order, adding: "Really, I want to turn it off and let the courts figure out how they want to run a federal agency."
Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)—which filed the suit with the Alliance for Retired Americans and the American Federation of Teachers—said in a Friday statement that "for almost 90 years, Social Security has never missed a paycheck—but 60 days into this administration, Social Security is now on the brink."
"Acting Commissioner Leland Dudek has proven again that he is in way over his head, compromising the privacy of millions of Americans, shutting down services that senior citizens rely on, and planning debilitating layoffs, all in service to Elon Musk's lies," he continued. "Now, like a child who didn't get his way, he is threatening to shut down Social Security. Rather than comply with a lawful court order, he wants to see millions of families, retirees, and disabled individuals go hungry, suffer, and potentially lose their homes all to curry favor with anti-worker billionaires. It's despicable."
"Even for this administration, this is a new low. Project 2025 didn't dare mention Social Security, but we always knew they would put it on the table," he added, citing a Heritage Foundation-led blueprint for remaking the government. "We've fought back efforts by anti-union extremists and billionaires to privatize and gut Social Security before, and we'll do it again. Workers paid into this program; it belongs to us."
Groups that are not part of the case also took aim at Dudek on Friday. Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, called the threat "to hold hostage" the earned benefits of over 70 million people "inexcusable" and "yet another example of the Trump administration's hostility to American seniors."
"Dudek is throwing a temper tantrum—claiming that if DOGE can't access American's data, neither can anyone else," he said. "No one in the federal government has the breadth of access to data that Elon Musk has demanded. Social Security employees' access is compartmentalized and only made available on a 'need-to-know' basis, and those with access to the data go through rigorous screening, training, and are subject to fines and/or jail time for violating this policy."
Richtman asserted that "Musk's continued effort to justify his actions by doubling down on thoroughly debunked claims of 'massive fraud' at SSA are being laid bare as a mere pretext for acquiring every American's personal information—which could then be used as weapons against anyone who disagrees with the Trump administration's actions."
Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, declared that "Dudek's leadership has been the darkest in Social Security's nearly 90-year history. He has sown chaos and destruction... His highest loyalty is to Elon Musk and Donald Trump, not to the beneficiaries that the agency is meant to serve. Singlehandedly, he has taken the security out of Social Security."
"Members of Congress who remain silent are complicit. The Trump-nominated commissioner, who will have his confirmation hearing next week, is no better. In fact, he proudly calls himself 'a DOGE person,'" she warned of Bisignano.
"Every member of Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, must condemn the destruction of our Social Security system and demand that the Trump administration follow Judge Hollander's order," Altman added. "They must make it clear that no president—even one who thinks he is a king—can shut down our Social Security system."
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Official Installed by Trump Moves to 'Demolish' Social Security Administration
"This is nothing more than a backdoor benefit cut and an insult to Americans who have paid into the system and earned their Social Security—all to pay for trillions in new tax cuts for the wealthy," said Democratic Rep. John Larson.
Feb 27, 2025
The acting leader of the Social Security Administration reportedly instructed managers earlier this week to draw up plans for a 50% cut to the agency's workforce, a push that advocates and lawmakers said would result in the gutting or total closure of local field offices—and likely benefit disruptions.
The American Prospect first reported the request from Leland Dudek, whom Trump installed as SSA commissioner earlier this month after the agency's former head resigned following a clash with Elon Musk's deputies over their attempts to access highly sensitive personal data. At the time he was elevated to the helm of SSA, Dudek was under investigation for allegedly sharing information with Musk's team improperly.
According to the Prospect, the deadline for SSA managers to comply with Dudek's request for mass-firing plans was Wednesday afternoon.
"The decision could target one of the government's most prominent public-facing initiatives: SSA field offices, where seniors, people with disabilities, and survivors whose parents have died can sign up for benefits and get information," the outlet noted. "In an email to the Prospect, SSA would not confirm any reductions in its workforce beyond the abolition of two small internal offices announced this week... Sources have speculated to the Prospect that the terminations are being done piecemeal to avoid headlines of tens of thousands of jobs lost."
"Laying off half of the workforce at the Social Security Administration and shuttering field offices will mean the delay, disruption, and denial of benefits."
Nancy Altman, president of the progressive advocacy group Social Security Works, said in a statement Wednesday that Dudek's push for large-scale staff cuts shows the Trump administration and Elon Musk want to "demolish" SSA.
"Contrary to what Elon Musk and his acolytes may believe, AI chatbots are no substitute for in-person service from a human being," said Altman. "Americans apply for Social Security benefits at the most vulnerable times of their lives. Moreover, many people who seek information may have trouble articulating or even knowing what questions they need to ask."
"If Musk's plan goes through, it will deny many Americans access to their hard-earned Social Security benefits. Field offices around the country will close. Wait times for the 1-800 number will soar," Altman warned. "DOGE claims to be concerned about fraud, but the best way to detect fraud is through face-to-face contacts with humans who can detect suspicious responses and can read body language. It's not too late to stop this disaster. We urge everyone to call their members of Congress and tell them that local Social Security offices must stay open and fully staffed."
In the wake of the Prospect's story, Government Executive reported that five of the eight regional SSA commissioners "whose offices oversee and support the agency's frontline offices across the country" have decided to leave their posts at the end of this week amid the Trump administration's onslaught against the federal workforce.
"Their departures come amid rumors of impending staff cuts at SSA, where the workforce is already at a 50-year low and has toiled amid a customer service crisis born of lack of funding," Government Executive noted. "Decades of congressional neglect have seen the agency's administrative budget, which for decades sat at 1.2% of benefit outlays, shrink to under 1%."
The outlet added that "regional commissioners aren't the only ones leaving SSA. An unknown number of other employees are also leaving the agency, which shuttered its civil rights and transformation offices this week."
Martin O'Malley, the former Maryland governor who served as SSA commissioner under the Biden administration, wrote late Wednesday that "Social Security is being driven to a total system collapse."
"I give the DOGE kids and co-President Musk 30-90 days before they crater it to the point of interruption of benefits," O'Malley added.
Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), a champion of Social Security and vocal supporter of expanding benefits, said in a statement that "Donald Trump pledged no cuts to Social Security on the campaign trail, but now he and Elon Musk have plans to do exactly that."
"Let me be clear—laying off half of the workforce at the Social Security Administration and shuttering field offices will mean the delay, disruption, and denial of benefits," said Larson. "This is nothing more than a backdoor benefit cut and an insult to Americans who have paid into the system and earned their Social Security—all to pay for trillions in new tax cuts for the wealthy. This has nothing to do with 'governmental efficiency.'"
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'Outrageous Lies': Claiming Fraud, Trump Floats Kicking Millions Off Social Security
"They are laying the groundwork for denying benefits to anyone they want to punish or deem unworthy—or indeed, any one of us," said the president of Social Security Works.
Feb 19, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump launched his latest threat against Social Security on Tuesday under the guise of combating fraud, floating the possibility of stripping benefits from "millions of people" as Elon Musk's lieutenants infiltrate the agency that administers the nation's most effective anti-poverty program.
"The good thing about Social Security and what I read is if you take all of those numbers off because they're obviously fraudulent or incompetent... all of a sudden we have a very powerful Social Security with people 80 and 70 and 90 but not 200 [years old]."
"We have millions and millions of people over 100 years old" who are receiving Social Security payments, Trump continued.
The Republican president did not provide any evidence for his claim of substantial fraud in the Social Security program, which provides benefits to roughly 70 million Americans. Musk has similarly claimed, without evidence, that "tens of millions of people [are] marked in Social Security as 'ALIVE' when they are definitely dead."
Watch Trump's comments:
Trump: We have millions and millions of people over 100 years old. Everybody knows that's not so. We have a very corrupt country, a very corrupt country. The good thing about Social Security and what I read is if you take all of those numbers off because they're obviously… pic.twitter.com/OwwxJ6difQ
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 18, 2025
A 2024 report from SSA's inspector general found that just 0.84% of the $8.6 trillion in Social Security benefits paid out between 2015 and 2022 were dispensed improperly. Trump recently fired the SSA inspector general, along with more than a dozen other agency watchdogs.
Nancy Altman, president of the progressive advocacy group Social Security Works, told Common Dreams on Wednesday that Trump's remarks about purported Social Security fraud were "outrageous lies."
"Social Security has vanishingly small amounts of fraud, which are generally quickly uncovered when the agency is adequately funded," said Altman. "Trump and Musk are intentionally undermining confidence in our Social Security system. They are laying the groundwork for denying benefits to anyone they want to punish or deem unworthy—or indeed, any one of us."
On Tuesday, Fox News aired a joint interview with Trump and Musk in which the president pledged that "Social Security won't be touched... other than if there's fraud or something."
"We're going to find it," Trump added.
"Musk’s baseless claims of massive fraud are a poorly disguised pretext to cut benefits for seniors to pay for his giant tax cut."
The Associated Press reported that "over the past few days, President Donald Trump and billionaire adviser Elon Musk have said on social media and in press briefings that people who are 100, 200, and even 300 years old are improperly getting benefits—a 'HUGE problem,' Musk wrote."
But AP noted that "as of September 2015, the agency automatically stops payments to people who are older than 115 years old."
The outlet added that "part of the confusion comes from Social Security's software system based on the COBOL programming language, which has a lack of date type. This means that some entries with missing or incomplete birthdates will default to a reference point of more than 150 years ago."
Trump's latest attack on the Social Security system came after the SSA's acting commissioner resigned this past weekend over a clash with Musk lieutenants who sought access to highly sensitive Social Security data.
Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, said in a statement Tuesday that "despite President Trump's promise not to touch Social Security, Elon Musk has gained access to the system that cuts your grandmother's Social Security check and is wreaking havoc."
"Musk's baseless claims of massive fraud," Jacquez added, "are a poorly disguised pretext to cut benefits for seniors to pay for his giant tax cut."
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Advocates Warn 'Musk Is Stealing Your Personal Social Security Data'
"There is no way to overstate how serious a breach this is. And my understanding is that it has already occurred," said the president of Social Security Works.
Feb 18, 2025
News that the acting head of the Social Security Administration left her post this past weekend after facing off with Elon Musk's lieutenants over their efforts to access government records set alarm bells blaring, with advocates warning that the unelected billionaire is moving to seize highly sensitive data.
"There is no way to overstate how serious a breach this is. And my understanding is that it has already occurred," said Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, a progressive advocacy organization that warned late Monday that "Elon Musk is stealing your personal Social Security data."
The Washington Post and other outlets reported Monday that Michelle King, a veteran of the Social Security Administration (SSA), left her position over the weekend after clashing with members of Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, an advisory commission known as DOGE that President Donald Trump has unleashed on federal agencies.
The New York Times reported that King stepped down after Musk's cronies sought access to "an internal data repository that contains extensive personal information about Americans."
In King's place Trump installed Leland Dudek, described by the Post as a "manager in charge of Social Security's anti-fraud office," to lead the Social Security agency until a permanent commissioner is confirmed. SSA administers retirement benefits and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for tens of millions of Americans.
Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said in a statement that "there is no justifiable reason for Musk and DOGE to have access to Americans' deeply personal information."
"Seniors, people with disabilities, and Americans everywhere of good conscience should be on high alert," said Richtman. "When a dedicated public servant resigns after more than 30 years due to the intrusive activities of Elon Musk and DOGE, that truly is a 'canary in a coal mine' moment."
"If there is an evil intent to punish perceived enemies, someone could erase your earnings record, making it impossible to collect the Social Security and Medicare benefits you have earned."
Altman noted Monday that SSA "has data on everyone who has a Social Security number, which is virtually all Americans, everyone who has Medicare, and every low-income American who has applied for" SSI.
"SSA has comprehensive medical records of people who have applied for disability benefits. It has our bank information, our earnings records, the names and ages of our children, and much more," said Altman. "Older people are disproportionately susceptible to scams. The data at SSA leaking would make the number of scams skyrocket. And, if there is an intent to punish perceived enemies, someone could erase your earnings record, making it impossible to collect the Social Security and Medicare benefits you have earned."
Altman told The Associated Press that "if there is an evil intent to punish perceived enemies, someone could erase your earnings record, making it impossible to collect the Social Security and Medicare benefits you have earned."
Musk's team of dozens of staffers—many of whose identities are not publicly known—have infiltrated departments across the federal government with the stated goal of rooting out waste and fraud, which critics say is merely a pretext for gutting critical programs that Trump and the unelected billionaire oppose. On Monday, advocacy groups filed an emergency lawsuit aiming to stop DOGE from accessing taxpayer data from the Internal Revenue Service.
"Hundreds of millions of Americans across the nation file taxes and provide sensitive, personal information to the IRS and they do so knowing that Congress has put in place protections to safeguard their data. DOGE is taking a wrecking ball to these protections and harming hardworking Americans and small businesses in the process," said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward. "DOGE must not be permitted to trample on the American people's rights and that is why we are honored to represent our clients in this federal court challenge to put a stop to DOGE's lawless and harmful activities."
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office last week, Musk claimed without evidence that his team uncovered "crazy things" in a "cursory examination of Social Security."
"We've got people in there that are 150 years old," Musk said. "Now, do you know anyone who's 150? I don't, OK. They should be in the Guinness Book of World Records."
Wired reported that "computer programmers quickly claimed that the 150 figure was not evidence of fraud, but rather the result of a weird quirk of the Social Security Administration's benefits system, which was largely written in COBOL, a 60-year-old programming language that undergirds SSA's databases as well as systems from many other U.S. government agencies."
"Because COBOL does not have a date type, some implementations rely instead on a system whereby all dates are coded to a reference point. The most commonly used is May 20, 1875, as this was the date of an international standards-setting conference held in Paris, known as the 'Convention du Mètre,'" Wired explained. "These systems default to the reference point when a birth date is missing or incomplete, meaning all of those entries in 2025 would show an age of 150."
"That's just one possible explanation for what DOGE allegedly found," the outlet added. "Musk could also have simply looked up the SSA's own website, which explains that since September 2015 the agency has automatically stopped benefit payments when anyone reaches the age of 115."
Martin O'Malley, the former governor of Maryland who served as SSA commissioner under the Biden administration, told the Post that Musk's team "will break" the Social Security system if they're given unfettered access.
"They will break it fast," O'Malley warned, "and there will be an interruption of benefits."
This story has been updated to include a statement from the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.
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'Social Security Is on the Ballot,' Say Advocates as Trump Threatens Cuts
"Not on my watch," said President Joe Biden in response to his Republican predecessor's latest threats to the safety net program.
Mar 11, 2024
With U.S. President Joe Biden's proposed 2025 budget released by the White House Monday just after former President Donald Trump issued his latest threat to slash Social Security and other safety net programs, economic justice groups said the choice between the two 2024 candidates could not be clearer.
"Make no mistake: Social Security is on the ballot this November," said Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works after Trump phoned in to CNBC's "Squawk Box" to say that "there is a lot you can do... in terms of cutting" so-called "entitlements" like the program for retirees as well as Medicaid and Medicare.
"And in terms of, also, the theft and the bad management of entitlements—tremendous bad management of entitlements—there's tremendous amounts of things and numbers of things you can do," said the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
Q: We've got $33 trillion in debt, have you changed your view on how to handle Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, something has to be done to bring down debt.
Trump: "There is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting." [pivots to rambling, lies] pic.twitter.com/4lMvJ6mcVG
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) March 11, 2024
While Trump's answer was "largely gibberish," according to former National Economic Council Deputy Director Bharat Ramamurti, his "express support for cutting Social Security and Medicare" was made clear.
A spokesperson for Trump's campaign said his comments were about cutting "waste" in the programs, but the remarks followed the former president's attempts to cut Social Security in all of the budget proposals he released during his term.
"It is consistent with Trump's past calls to privatize Social Security and raise the retirement age, as well as his slandering it as a 'Ponzi scheme,'" said Altman. "It is also consistent with the House Republican FY2025 budget, which proposes creating a commission designed to slash Social Security and Medicare behind closed doors."
The Republicans' budget proposal, which the House Budget Committee advanced last week, includes a so-called "fiscal commission" that would be empowered to fast-track Social Security and Medicare cuts.
"The contrast is clear," said U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.). "Democrats want to protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare. The other party wants to end the programs as we know them."
Before winning the 2016 election, Trump called to raise the retirement age to 70 and promised to rescind the payroll tax—the taxes working people pay to fund Social Security and Medicare. He has frequently said cutting the programs, which about 70 million people rely on for post-retirement financial security and healthcare, was necessary to maintain their long-term solvency.
Despite Republicans' frequent claims that Americans' earned benefit programs are "bankrupting the country," Social Security is currently fully solvent—able to pay out full benefits to all beneficiaries—through 2034, and even if Congress took no action to expand the program, would be able to cover 80% of benefits after 2034. Medicare is currently solvent through 2028.
On social media, Biden responded to Trump's plan for the programs with four words: "Not on my watch."
Altman noted that Biden's proposed budget included "a very different vision for Social Security's future," with the president releasing a plan Monday "for protecting and expanding Social Security—and paying for it by requiring millionaires and billionaires to contribute their fair share."
Under a second Biden term, the White House said, there would be no benefit cuts to Social Security, and wealthy Americans—who currently do not pay Social Security taxes on all of their income, such as capital gains—would be required to pay "their fair share" to ensure retirees can continue to benefit from the program.
The Biden budget would also extend the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund permanently "by modestly increasing the Medicare tax rate on incomes above $400,000, closing loopholes in existing Medicare taxes, and directing revenue from the Net Investment Income Tax into the HI Trust Fund as was originally intended."
"Current law lets certain wealthy business owners avoid Medicare taxes on some of the profits they get from passthrough businesses," said the White House. "The budget closes this loophole and raises Medicare tax rates on earned and unearned income from 3.8% to 5% for those with incomes over $400,000."
Advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness pointed out that with Trump's plan to extend his 2017 tax cuts—which disproportionately benefited corporations and the wealthy and made billionaires $2.2 trillion richer—$3.5 trillion would be added to federal government's deficit.
"If anyone tries to cut Social Security or Medicare or raise the retirement age, I will stop them," said Biden on Monday after the release of his budget proposal. "Working people built this country, and pay more into Social Security than millionaires and billionaires do. It's not fair."
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Voters—Including Majority of Republicans—Oppose McCarthy Ploy to Attack Social Security
"Voters have a message for Kevin McCarthy," said one critic of the House speaker's proposed fiscal commission: "Hands off Social Security and Medicare!"
Jun 28, 2023
As House Republicans advance a budget proposal that one leading critic warns would "destroy Social Security as we know it," a survey published Wednesday showed U.S. voters overwhelmingly oppose the creation of the fiscal commission proposed by Speaker Kevin McCarthy to decide how to gut the vital social program upon which nearly 70 million Americans rely.
The Data for Progress survey found that opposition to McCarthy's (R-Calif.) proposed commission is thoroughly bipartisan, with 72% of all likely voters—including 78% of Democrats, 72% of Independents, and 65% of Republicans—either "somewhat" or "strongly" opposing the move.
In contrast, 93% of survey respondents said that Social Security benefits should remain as they are or be expanded, including 94% of Democrats, 91% of Independents, and 94% of Republicans.
"Voters correctly understand that Social Security and Medicare are earned benefits," Nancy Altman, president of the advocacy group Social Security Works, wrote for Data for Progress.
"Contrary to the claims of McCarthy and other Republicans, Social Security doesn't contribute a single penny to the national debt," she noted. It is fully funded by the contributions of American workers and other dedicated revenue. Indeed, it currently has a $2.8 trillion accumulated surplus."
McCarthy's overt attack on Social Security belies his oft-repeated past promise that cuts to the program were off the table.
During his February State of the Union address, President Joe Biden was loudly booed by Republican lawmakers when he accused some of them of seeking to "sunset" Social Security, an allegation that McCarthy denied.
However, last month the speaker claimed that Biden "walled off" cuts to Social Security and Medicare during the debt ceiling talks, and warned that he would "make some people uncomfortable" by taking a "look at" slashing funding for both programs.
"McCarthy and his fellow Republicans have made it clear that raising taxes on the wealthy is not an option," Altman wrote Wednesday. "When Republicans say they want to create a commission to 'look at' Social Security and Medicare, they mean one thing: benefit cuts."
Meanwhile, congressional progressives are fighting to not only save but expand Social Security.
As Altman noted:
Sens. Bernie Sanders [I-Vt.] and Elizabeth Warren [D-Mass.] have introduced the Social Security Expansion Act: which does just that. It expands benefits across the board by $200 per month and ensures that all benefits can be paid in full and on time through the end of the century and beyond. No one with income less than $250,000 would pay even a penny more.
Similarly, Rep. John Larson [D-Ct.] will soon introduce Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust. Under his plan, no one earning under $400,000 would pay a penny more. The additional revenue from the wealthiest among us would be used to strengthen and expand the program. In the last Congress, Social Security 2011 was cosponsored by about 90% of Larson's fellow House Democrats.
"These are bills that can go through regular order for Congress to vote on in the light of day," Altman wrote. "That's because they are overwhelmingly supported by voters—Democrats, Republicans, Independents. Those are truly bipartisan proposals."
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