Paul Aguilar, an AIDS activist in San Francisco, has received a letter from the Social Security Administration demanding that he repay about $200,000 in disability benefits. The gay 61-year-old Aguilar started receiving disability benefits in 2005 after he was diagnosed with AIDS.
Since 2022, he has been the long-term survivor community liaison for aging services for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. “I have worked over the years but faithfully reported my earnings as I was instructed, including being part of California’s ‘working disabled program,’” he told the Bay Area Reporter. Under the California Working Disabled Program, people who meet the federal definition of disability —an AIDS diagnosis qualifies — and whose net income is no more than 250 percent of the federal poverty level can receive health coverage through Medi-Cal, California’s version of Medicaid.
The letter from the Social Security Administration was dated March 19 and said the payments should have stopped in 2013. And while this was the first time Social Security has suggested there had been overpayments, it gave only 30 days to repay the large sum, though a payment plan was offered if he couldn’t pay the full amount. “I simply find it hard to believe that they could overlook an overpayment for 13 years,” he told the Bay Area Reporter. He received no check from Social Security this month, and that creates a hardship for him.
There has been deep concern over the access to Social Security information by Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency, which is planning to move the Social Security database to a different programming language, potentially compromising the system. Is this a one-off error? A targeted attack? Incompetence? Malevolence? Let’s talk about it.
