▶ 0:18:58Chair Crapo: This meeting will provide members with the opportunity to make remarks on the nomination of Dr. oz. Dr. oz has years of experience as an acclaimed physician and public health advocate. His background makes him uniquely qualified to manage the intricacies at cms.
▶ 0:19:21Chair Crapo: At his hearing, he discussed his vision to ensure cms provides americans with access to support care, especially our most vulnerable patients. I look forward to working with him, if confirmed, to accomplish this goal. I was also encouraged to hear that he will focus on modernizing federal health care programs, work to fix our broken clinician payment system, and partner with congress to achieve pharmaceutical benefit manager reform. There is no doubt that Dr.
▶ 0:19:50Chair Crapo: Oz will work tirelessly to deliver much needed change at cms. I will be voting in favor of his nomination and I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do the same. I now recognize senator wyden for his remarks.
▶ 0:20:07Sen. Wyden: Later today we are going to vote on the oz nomination. I'm just going to spend a few minutes describing why I can't support the nomination. During his confirmation hearing, Dr. oz was given the chance to assure the american people that he would not be a rubber stamp for republican plans to got medicaid and hike affordable care act premiums. At every turn, he failed the test.
▶ 0:20:36Sen. Wyden: When I asked him a yes or no question about whether he would protect medicaid, he dodged, he weaved, he simply wouldn't answer. That's a stark contrast to what I heard at town hall meetings open to all in oregon this past week. In oregon city I was joined by patty and katina, who are helped with medical expenses by medicaid.
▶ 0:21:02Sen. Wyden: Because of that, katina can thrive in the community as an oregonian who lives with down syndrome. There are countless other families in oregon and across the country who are terrified of these cuts. Dr. oz also ducked a number of my other questions. When pressed on whether nurses belong in nursing homes, he replied -- that was a complicated question. I found that to be a jaw dropper.
▶ 0:21:30Sen. Wyden: It isn't complicated for the rest of us, whether nursing homes ought to have adequate staff to take your mom to the bathroom or give your grandpa meals. I told Dr. oz it was pretty simple. Not only did the nominee dodge and weave during questioning in his confirmation hearing, he also failed to provide factual responses to our written questions submitted afterwards. His lack of response in it -- responsiveness ought to be unacceptable to every member of the committee.
▶ 0:21:59Sen. Wyden: The republican majority seems eager to disregard their own congressional oversight responsibilities when donald trump calls the shots. I will once again state that Dr. oz is the second trump nominee to come before this committee with a record of dodging medicare and social security taxes. Nurses and firefighters across america pay taxes with every single hard earned paycheck. The multimillionaire nominated to run medicare can't be bothered to do the same thing.
▶ 0:22:31Sen. Wyden: [no audio] this is a continuation of our efforts to spotlight health care middlemen that in my view are reaching off of the health care system at the expense of
▶ 0:23:02Sen. Wyden: Taxpayers and seniors. Our investigation found too many for-profit insurance companies were spending billions of taxpayer dollars on marketing middlemen to drown seniors in calls and mailers. These tactics are designed to pressure them into enrolling in private health plans that might not even cover their preferred doctor or medicines, or that may put up unexpected roadblocks to getting the care they need.
▶ 0:23:28Sen. Wyden: Insurance companies and marketing middlemen have worked to create a complex and complicated system to line the pockets of shareholders by raising costs of seniors and taxpayers and evading oversight accountability. Given the history of Dr. oz for basically acting as a salesman for medicare advantage, putting him in charge of regulating these middlemen is almost like letting the fox guard the proverbial head hemp -- proverbial hen house.
▶ 0:23:54Sen. Wyden: There are too many instances in which for-profit insurance companies are using shady market practices to take advantage of older people. They spend five times more on marketing and administrative expenses than traditional medicare, which is of course run by the government. If elon musk and his cronies cared about targeting waste and fraud, they would be focused on waste in medicare advantage rather than targeting american's hard earned social security.
▶ 0:24:25Sen. Wyden: We have fought for consumer protections against predatory marketing. I asked Dr. odds to pledge not to roll them back. I will be watch talking this issue spotlighting these abuses. The bottom line is that this is a nominee who has shown no ability to or interest in pushing back on the dangerous trump health care agenda. I urge my colleagues to vote no.
▶ 0:24:54Chair Crapo: Thank you. We will now turn to any senator wanting to make a statement. I ask that each of you who wants to make a statement to keep your remarks to three minutes or less so that we can keep on time for the social nominee. Senator kappo, you are next.
▶ 0:25:13Senator Cap O: I want to be clear about the devastating impact that medicaid has on our constituents, including the house republican budget. I appreciate the willingness of Dr. oz to consider important reforms, he was unwilling to commit to opposing a cut to medicaid. The math is clear, a proposal from the house budget would require massive cuts to medicaid.
▶ 0:25:40Senator Cap O: I appreciate that my republican senate colleagues know this, which is why it is not in their particular proposal, but now we have to fight for the negotiations between the house and senate and hold our colleagues accountable to protect this important program. I know Dr. oz won't. He would not commit. He would not say no to donald trump, elon musk, or the house of representatives.
▶ 0:26:06Senator Cap O: The house committee that oversees medicaid and medicare is responsible for funding $880 billion in these cuts. You can see from this chart that the only real place to get this, particularly if medicare is off the table, is from medicaid. Even if the committee completely eliminated every single other program in the account, it still gives them 1/6 of what they need. Make no mistake, there is no other way to meet this mandate other than to impact medicaid.
▶ 0:26:37Senator Cap O: My colleagues trying to play down the threat or act like there is some other way around it, it's just not so. It's either bad math or bad faith. Anyone telling their constituents is not being honest with them. Last week I spoke in my state, in seattle, in the tri-cities, about these medicaid cuts. I was joined by physicians, patients, hospital providers, who do not want to shoulder this burden.
▶ 0:27:05Senator Cap O: A patient like a gail from spokane who is terrified that the system that provided her and her late partner who just passed with affordable health care, that it will no longer be there for them. She told me "who is going to pay for the nursing home"? "are we just going to be left to die"? Harborview, a medical center in seattle with the most advanced trauma care in the region receives 39% of their revenue from medicaid.
▶ 0:27:35Senator Cap O: The ceo told me that a cut of this magnitude would be existential. Everyone knows that this issue is on the table. Yet we don't have a nominee before us who will say, clearly, that he doesn't plan to cut medicaid. According to the congressional budget office, medicaid related expenditures count for 93% of the non-medicare spending in the house energy and commerce committee. The lion's share will absolutely have to come from medicaid.
▶ 0:28:05Senator Cap O: Now it is time to get a nominee who will support that. That is not Dr. oz. Of the tsunami of cuts we are looking at, I cannot support this nomination. I hope my colleagues turn it down as well and I hope our colleagues will join us in a fight to say no cuts to medicaid. Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 0:28:24Chair Crapo: I appreciate you keeping the three minute time limit, senator cantwell. Senator hassan?
▶ 0:28:31Senator Hassan: Thank you for this markup in this opportunity to discuss the serious implications of having Dr. oz oversee health care for more than 160 million americans. First of all, Dr. oz has shown a dangerous willingness to say or do anything that donald trump directs them to do. During his hearing he refused to commit to following the law in the event that trump directs them to do something illegal.
▶ 0:29:01Senator Hassan: The failure to commit is disqualifying. If confirmed, Dr. oz would also be tasked with implementing devastating cuts to medicaid proposed by congressional republicans, which could lead to as many as 30,000 children in my state losing their health insurance.
▶ 0:29:19Senator Hassan: Granite staters one and increased access to health care, not a budget plan that would take it away from children, seniors in nursing homes, and thousands of people living in rural areas of my state. Dr. oz is one of several trump administration nominees who say they recognize the real difference that medicaid and other health programs make.
▶ 0:29:44Senator Hassan: And yet they are joining an administration and are supported by congressional republicans who plan to slash the health programs that people rely on. In my state, that includes parents I met yesterday of a young man with autism whose health care is provided by both medicaid and medicare and would not be able to obtain private insurance otherwise.
▶ 0:30:08Senator Hassan: It is also my constituent up in the north country, over the last week, who expressed her concern that her twins with severe disabilities would be pushed off of medicaid, leaving her and her family without access to critical care for them. Finally, I will note that a number of states, including my state of new hampshire, have something called a trigger law that applies to the medicaid expansion program.
▶ 0:30:36Senator Hassan: Should the degree of federal funding for medicaid expansion, which among other things provides critical mental health care and addiction treatment, should that go below 90%, which was the federal commitment for medicaid expansion, 10 states in this country will automatically lose medicaid expansion. The implications here are real. They are serious. Dr.
▶ 0:31:03Senator Hassan: Oz's assertion that he cares about medicaid and understands how important it is is belied by his unwillingness, as the senator pointed out, to commit to protecting the medicaid program and his willingness to join this administration. I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing the confirmation of Dr. oz. Thank you.
▶ 0:31:26Chair Crapo: Thank you. Senators smith and senator lou have agreed to let senator warnock go next.
▶ 0:31:37Senator Warnock: Thank you, Mr. chair. Long before I came to the senate, I was fighting for my state to expand medicaid, giving an estimated 600 thousand georgians access to affordable health care. Here we are, 15 years almost to the day of the affordable care act being signed into law, and still georgia has not expanded medicaid.
▶ 0:32:02Senator Warnock: Georgia continues to deny its citizens access to this program that is being supported by taxpaying georgians. To make matters worse, now washington republicans have proposed to got almost $900 billion from medicaid to give millionaires and billionaires an additional tax cut, potentially kicking millions of americans off of their health care insurance.
▶ 0:32:29Senator Warnock: Medicaid covers almost 40 million children across the country. Two out of five children in georgia. 110 veterans. 63% of seniors in nursing homes. Medicaid also supports 1/5 of all hospital spending. Especially in communities without many hospital options. Republicans and Dr.
▶ 0:32:54Senator Warnock: Oz say they want to make medicaid more efficient by requiring people who get their health insurance through medicaid to fill out government paperwork each month to prove that they are working. Here are the facts. Here are the facts. Nearly all adults enrolled in medicaid are either working, in school, or caregivers. By and large, if they can work, they do work.
▶ 0:33:21Senator Warnock: I know that may be hard to believe in a country that increasingly maligned sport people for being poor, but by and large these folks are already working, caregivers or students. They are construction workers, restaurant workers, mechanics, doing exactly what Dr. oz and washington republicans want them to do.
▶ 0:33:42Senator Warnock: Here's the deal, republicans need a lot of money to pay for their tax cuts for the wealthiest among us and they know that if you give people enough bureaucratic hoops to jump through, enough working people will get tripped up by the red tape in lose their health care. So, that's the plan. Less money spent on working moms cancer treatment because she didn't fill out the right form every month. By the right deadline. So, you have more money for billionaire tax cuts.
▶ 0:34:13Senator Warnock: We know this, because I live in georgia. Georgia is the only state with work reporting requirements for its medicaid program and all the program has to show for itself five years later is 65 hundred people enrolled. Nearly 600,000 georgians in the medicaid gap. The governor's program has enrolled a whopping 6500 people. Mr.
▶ 0:34:37Senator Warnock: Chair, I know I'm running out of time, but as I close, and nobody believes a baptist preacher when he says that, let me be clear, I'm voting against Dr. oz. He is certainly more knowledgeable than secretary kennedy about the programs he is tasked to lead, but we have got to take seriously the needs of millions of americans who will lose their health care, so I'm voting no for his nomination and
▶ 0:35:08Senator Warnock: I would urge my colleagues to do the same.
▶ 0:35:11Chair Crapo: Thank you. Senator smith?
▶ 0:35:16Senator Smith: I'm speaking in opposition of Dr. oz to be the administrator of cms, I'm voting no because of what I see is a concerted effort by the trump administration am congressional republicans to use medicaid as an atm to pay for tax breaks for the biggest most successful corporations and wealthy individuals. At a time when minnesotans are struggling to afford their lives, the trump policies are making it worse, not better. I cannot support the nomination of Dr.
▶ 0:35:43Senator Smith: Oz, who will be an enthusiastic participant in a plan that will make medicaid health insurance harder to get and more expensive. In my home state of minnesota, 1.2 million people get their health insurance through medicaid. Seniors in nursing homes, moms and their kids, working families , people with disabilities, patients struggling with mental and behavioral health challenges. Medicaid is a health insurance that covers half of nursing home residents and our state, covering one in three minnesota children.
▶ 0:36:13Senator Smith: It's the biggest health insurer for mental and behavioral health care for minnesotans and americans, that's 15 million americans. Here's the reality, taking away health insurance coverage from people won't cut sickness. People will still need health care. They just won't be able to get it in the most efficient cost-effective way. They will get it in emergency rooms, not doctors offices. Taking a where help -- taking away health care insurance will hurt people.
▶ 0:36:43Senator Smith: It will also costs more money at the end of the day. I was home this past weekend I have heard so many stories about medicaid and how it saves lives. I wanted to share one story with the committee. Last week I met a remarkable young woman whose name is appropriately hope. As a teenager and young adult, she suffered from debilitating and life-threatening psychosis. If it were not for medicaid, she would not be alive today.
▶ 0:37:16Senator Smith: In minnesota medicaid covers inpatient mental health care. Hope was committed and treated in inpatient care and got intensive treatment for her psychosis, covered by medicaid. A diagnosis of psychosis can feel so hopeless, but she was able to get intensive care. She needed to learn how to understand and control her illness. Today she is able to live independently and manage her mental health. Today she gets her health insurance through her employer. Colleagues, I'm voting no on Dr.
▶ 0:37:46Senator Smith: Oz because I do not trust him or this administration to follow the law and protect our health care. I cannot trust him or this administration to run cms to protect access to health care for hope and the 1.2 million minnesotans who get their insurance through medicaid. Thank you, Mr. chair.
▶ 0:38:05Chair Crapo: Senator lujan?
▶ 0:38:09Senator Lujan: Recently a mother in new mexico share the story of her son who was diagnosed with hemophilia at the age of six. Six-year-olds should be entering the first grade on time, playing with neighbors, watching superhero movies, arguing with their siblings about whose turn it is to do the dishes.
▶ 0:38:30Senator Lujan: Six-year-olds should not have to worry about whether or not they get to see a doctor or whether they will get the medicine they need to feel better so that they can do all the things that six-year-olds should be doing. That mother from new mexico told me she is scared, scared that if her sons medicaid is ripped away , she will lose her son. Now, I know that each of us is hearing similar stories from her constituents.
▶ 0:38:59Senator Lujan: Based on news accounts, there were a lot of town halls and gatherings across america this last week. Some members of the house participated. For some, it was an empty chair. From the meetings I had with this nominee, and from what I've seen so far from this administration, it's clear to me they plan to cut the medicaid program that serves 784,000 new mexicans.
▶ 0:39:26Senator Lujan: That's 784 thousand lives that depend on this coverage to survive. To get the health they need, the medical support that's crucial to living happy, productive lives. I won't stand by and watch as families are left behind by this administration. There are better ways to improve the health system. Cutting essential programs like medicare -- medicaid to support a trump tax scam is not one of them.
▶ 0:39:53Senator Lujan: I cannot support a nominee who will tear apart the health care system to justify giving millionaires and billionaires more money. Folks of making $2 million per year, congratulations. Wish them well. Hope they make more. To the folks making the median income and less, shouldn't they be getting the tax cut? That is where the should be going. This is an about wealthy people or not. It's about who deserves help and support across the country. That's what we are talking about here.
▶ 0:40:23Senator Lujan: I urge my colleagues to think about the millions of americans, their constituents, my constituents, who depend on the programs this nominee will have control over and I urge them to vote no.
▶ 0:40:34Chair Crapo: Thank you. Senator whitehouse question mark
▶ 0:40:39Senator Whitehouse: Thank you, chairman. First of all, let me express my appreciation to senator cantwell for her remarks, which I thought pretty well summarized where we are in terms of the looming attack on medicaid. I want to point out that in rhode island, 60% of older folks are funded by medicaid.
▶ 0:41:08Senator Whitehouse: Nursing homes are not in great shape to begin with. This could be a case of not only ants and mothers not getting the funds needed to remain in the home, but the nursing home not surviving financially. 45% of births in new hampshire take place at women's hospital, funded by medicaid. For a variety of reasons, women and infants cannot afford to have medicaid stripped away.
▶ 0:41:35Senator Whitehouse: It would put that hospital in financial peril to lose medicaid. Many vets -- many of us lived through the opioid epidemic. Many of us experienced similar to what we experienced in rhode island. Many people in rhode island and around the country on that brave and noble path to addiction recovery are supported by medicaid. To undercut them would be cruel as well as stupid.
▶ 0:42:07Senator Whitehouse: I have three topics I have raised with Dr. oz that I would like to get some progress on. It looks like when cms, in a massive abundance of stupidity, turned on one of its best performing national aco's and try to strip it because a -- of a brief and disputed departure minimum, it got thrown out by a court. It shows how weak the cms case was.
▶ 0:42:36Senator Whitehouse: I hope that cms doesn't go back for revenge and leaves things as they are and lets one of the nation's highest performing aco's continue to be a high performing aco. Rhode island suffers from a 20% differential and payments. Backus hospital is probably 25 minutes from our border in connecticut. Saint ann's is probably five minutes from our border in massachusetts.
▶ 0:43:02Senator Whitehouse: Neither of them provide the high level of service of rhode island hospitals and women's and children's hospitals. Yet they are paid more. Cms sits on its hands and couldn't care less about doing anything about the differential, even as it erodes the financial security of the rhode island health care base.
▶ 0:43:22Senator Whitehouse: Last of all, I have been working with cms since the first trump administration and it has been groundhog day with people changing and having to get back to square one on letting rhode island being a model for a better way to treat families and patients where the individuals near link -- near the end of their life.
▶ 0:43:41Senator Whitehouse: We do really stupid things to people because of medicare rules that don't make any sense in that circumstance and make even less sense when there is a value-based care model in place. I hope that we can make some real progress on those three things. We have to defend medicaid. It's wrong to go after it. Thank you, chairman.
▶ 0:44:02Chair Crapo: Senator welch, did you make -- wish to make a statement at this point? All right, senator marshall, I think you are the wrap up.
▶ 0:44:14Senator Marshall: Thank you so much. This is such an important topic. I want to emphasize that as I talk to trump, the administration, my fellow republicans, we are here to save medicaid. We are here to save it. We want to strengthen medicaid for the most vulnerable. That's our goal. I look forward to working with my colleagues across the aisle on figuring out how to save it.
▶ 0:44:39Senator Marshall: But you would also agree with me that what we are spending on medicaid now looks like a rocket ship. We have increased spending on medicaid by 50% over the last five years. We will spend one trillion this year on medicaid. We want to make sure that medicaid dollars are spent on the most vulnerable of people, the ones that really, really need it. That should be the focus. Saving medicaid. I think there are opportunities.
▶ 0:45:10Senator Marshall: When you spend a trillion years on medicaid, gone up 50% to five years, there is opportunity to address the fraud, the waste, eligibility issues. You know, I wake up every morning hoping to do what's fair, to do justice. What is being done in one state in medicaid -- with medicaid is unfair to what's happening in kansas. Some states are manipulating the system, gaming system.
▶ 0:45:37Senator Marshall: If we don't get our arms around it, there will be no medicaid left for those who are the most vulnerable. That is our goal. The goal of saving medicaid to use it for the most vulnerable. That's a great starting point. I will close with a little thought on medicaid advantage. Like Dr. oz, I thought it was a good thing when it came out. Unfortunately, it has been manipulated.
▶ 0:46:07Senator Marshall: They found loopholes to manipulate. Now we are spending probably $83 billion more per year on medicare advantage patients as opposed to if they had been on traditional medicare. I think similar situations are happening with medicaid managed care systems as well.
▶ 0:46:26Senator Marshall: So, I look forward to working with my colleagues across the aisle and I hope that there is an amendment or an opportunity to, too, to fix that very broken system that my friends across the aisle who speak so boldly about changing medicare advantage that they will vote for reforming it as well, whenever we have that opportunity. So, again, just emphasizing that republicans are here to save medicaid.
▶ 0:46:52Senator Marshall: We want to make sure that we strengthen medicaid for the most vulnerable of the society who need it.
▶ 0:46:57Thank You Chair Crapo: , Mr. chair. Thank you, senator marshall. Procedurally, so everyone understands what will happen regarding this nomination, the committee will recess at this point, briefly, before then moving to our social security hearing. We will reconvene to vote on the nomination of Dr. oz off the senate floor at a time to be announced when we know the votes are happening. Members will be notified at the time we get that confirmed.
▶ 0:47:28Thank You Chair Crapo: The committee will be recessed, briefly, until we begin the next hearing.
▶ 0:57:48Chair Crapo: Chair crapo: the committee will come to order. Today we will consider the nomination of frank bisignano to be the commissioner of the social security administration. Mr. bisignano, congratulations on your nomination, and welcome to you. Thank you for your willingness to serve and for your cooperation with the committee throughout the rigorous vetting process.
▶ 0:58:11Chair Crapo: Both sides have generally agreed that the social security administration a confirmed commission to address the ongoing challenges at the agency. I commend the president for putting forward a nominee so early in the administration. As more than 30 years of executive leadership experience at leading financial institutions.
▶ 0:58:34Chair Crapo: He has brought a focus on innovation and operational excellence to his current role as chief executive officer of fiserv, a leader of payments and financial technology responsible for processing $2.5 trillion in payments daily. If confirmed, you will be responsible for leading an agency with a critical mission, numerous operational and customer service challenges. As you will hear this morning.
▶ 0:59:04Chair Crapo: Based on your background, I'm confident you are up to the task. It's hard to overstate the importance of social security, divides monthly benefits to millions of seniors, individuals with disabilities, and their families. The social security administration has the responsibility of overseeing this important program and the supplemental security income program. Assigning social security numbers and issuing social security cards, among other workloads.
▶ 0:59:34Chair Crapo: In carrying out these significant responsibilities, the social security administration interacts with millions of customers each year, whether in person, by phone, or online. The public expects the agency to provide responsive service on their claims. However, the ssa faces many challenges in meeting these expectations.
▶ 0:59:55Chair Crapo: After years of implementation delays and the ultimate failure of its next generation project, ssa has made some progress with its national 800-number, including introducing the callback option. However, much more is needed. Callers to the national 800 number who want to wait for a representative are still spending too long on hold and many still struggle to actually get through to a representative when they call.
▶ 1:00:34Chair Crapo: Particularly in certain parts of the country. As they shift to an appointment focused approach, it underscored's -- underscores the need for the need for customers to make appointments online. The trump administration has been clear that they are focused on addressing waste, fraud, and abuse across government agencies and I applaud the effort to maximize productivity. A senate confirmed commissioner should be leading these efforts. Mr.
▶ 1:01:02Chair Crapo: Bisignano, if confirmed to service the next commissioner and social security, this responsibility will be falling to you. I urge you to take a thoughtful, measured, data driven approach to evaluating policy and operational changes aimed at improving ssa's efficiency and productivity.
▶ 1:01:24Chair Crapo: If you need additional tools that require statutory changes, I urge you to bring the changes to this committee and our house counterparts. Today's hearing will provide an opportunity to hear more about your vision for social security and how we can work together to make sure that the ssa fulfills its critical mission. Thank you, again, for your willingness to serve, and congratulations on your nomination come up which I intend to support.
▶ 1:01:52Chair Crapo: With that, I recognize ranking member widen.
▶ 1:01:54Sen. Wyden: Thank you, Mr. chairman. This morning the finance committee gathers to discuss the future of the social security administration and its potential new leader, frank bisignano. Today's -- today's news brings fresh reports that it is bedlam out there in social security.
▶ 1:02:16Sen. Wyden: That's what I heard last week from senior social security staffers at a town hall meeting arranged in my hometown of portland for federal employees. Senior social security staff told me they were short staffed, even before doge arrived. How they cannot respond on the phone. How the websites are crashing and seniors are getting lost in the system.
▶ 1:02:43Sen. Wyden: It is clear that this is happening around america today. Every day, there is more hard evidence of this. So, I believe that it is time to bring a halt to doge's destruction of social security before it goes any further.
▶ 1:03:04Sen. Wyden: With these developments, the doge crowd is breaking a sacred promise to deliver americans there earned social security benefits. It is time for every member of this committee to step up and commit to rolling back these disastrous actions and to bring sanity back to social security.
▶ 1:03:28Sen. Wyden: Today's hearing is going to be an opportunity for the nominee to tell the american people whose side he is on. Is he on the side of american workers who paid into social security and are now being whipsawed by the doge bureaucracy?
▶ 1:03:44Sen. Wyden: Or is he on the side of elon musk and howard let nick, the trump cronies who think that social security is a pyramid scheme and that seniors looking for help when their checks don't come on time must somehow be fraudsters. The urgency for today's hearing couldn't be greater, since donald trump took office social security has experienced the most chaos in its history. Mass personnel layoffs.
▶ 1:04:13Sen. Wyden: Eliminating phone service for basic help. Sending seniors to overcrowded and understaffed field offices that have also been put on the chopping block for closure. Political appointees poking around your most sensitive private information, creating a big risk for what I call the mother of all identity thefts. Claims of massive fraud by donald trump and elon musk.
▶ 1:04:41Sen. Wyden: This approach is a prescription for denying earned benefits to seniors and americans. I want to be clear as we begin this discussion, if americans lose access to their social security because of trump chaos, that is doge stealing their money.
▶ 1:05:03Sen. Wyden: Donald trump and elon musk have repeated claims that there are millions of social security numbers assigned to people over 150 years of age and they are still drawing benefits. Elon musk says there is a massive amount of fraud and that social security is "the biggest ponzi scheme of all time." donald trump says money is being paid to many americans over the age of 100.
▶ 1:05:29Sen. Wyden: Donald trump thinks that more than 1000 people over 200 20 years of age are being paid by social security. Many americans may be wondering if those individuals are still receiving their revolutionary war pensions at this point. These are lies. Here are some facts. Last year the social security inspector general issued a report showing that social security retirement and disability has a criminal fraud rate of, get this, 0.009%.
▶ 1:06:01Sen. Wyden: By the way, as a percentage, that's much lower than the 1.4 billion dollars in assets that reportedly went missing on the tesla balance sheet just last week. Social security itself reported 89,000 americans aged 99 and over receiving benefits as of december of last year. Social security automatically stops paying benefits at age 115, even if a death hasn't been reported. Don't take it from me.
▶ 1:06:31Sen. Wyden: Check the sign. It says why doge is struggling to find fraud in social security. What's behind the lies on social security? In my view, they are deliberately misleading the public to set the stage for cuts to social security benefits that are going to be draped in anti-fraud rhetoric. The same way we are hearing the case being made for cutting medicaid. Let's be clear again.
▶ 1:07:02Sen. Wyden: Senate democrats are going to fight attempts to cut american's earned benefits at every single turn. Our nominee has made a career out of taking over troubled businesses and using a pretty ominous recipe, got the company by firing hundreds of thousands of workers, sell off pieces of the business, merge with another company. That resume and approach ought to concern americans. If someone is thinking about applying that pattern to social security?
▶ 1:07:32Sen. Wyden: As I have been saying for weeks, this approach is a prelude to privatizing social security and handing it over to private equity. Every single member of this committee knows there are ways to strengthen social security. What social security does well year after year is get the checks out the door to seniors who rely on them on time, every single month. I will close by saying that improving social security doesn't start with shuttering the offices.
▶ 1:08:05Sen. Wyden: It doesn't start with indiscriminately firing or buying out thousands of workers. It doesn't start with restricting customer service over the phone and drawing up plans to close regional offices. The musk let nick trump planned for social security is to take away earned benefits from seniors, hollow out the agency in preparation to handed over to private equity, and give the savings over to their billionaire friends.
▶ 1:08:34Sen. Wyden: The fact of the matter is social security could be fully funded for generations to come, if you just crackdown on billionaire tax cheats and eliminate the payroll tax cap for millionaires and billionaires. This year alone, the finance committee has considered multiple trump nominees that for one strategy or another have figure out ways to avoid paying what they owe into the programs that they are being nominated to actually run.
▶ 1:09:03Sen. Wyden: Scott bessent paid little to no medicare he tax. Dr. al was managed to avoid paying both medicare and social security. This morning, our nominee has the opportunity to share his vision for improving social security, not dismantling it. Americans deserve to hear this individual's vision for making customer service easier, not creating more roadblocks, which seem to get stronger each day.
▶ 1:09:33Sen. Wyden: Americans deserve to hear a clear rejection of the musk view that social security -- musk view. Social security is not a ponzi scheme perpetrated as fraud on the american people.
▶ 1:09:45Chair Crapo: Before Mr. bisignano's opening statement, I will give a short introduction. He has 30 years of executive leadership experience in banks and global financial institutions and currently serves as the chairman of the board and chief executive officer of fiserv inc., a leader in payments and financial technology.
▶ 1:10:09Chair Crapo: Fiserv serves clients in 100 countries and processes 2.5 trillion in payments, with over 850 million daily transactions. Fiserv has been recognized as a leading company by fortune, forbes, time, newsweek, among others. Prior to becoming ceo and chairman of first data core, which combined with fiserv, Mr.
▶ 1:10:34Chair Crapo: Bisignano was co-chief operating officer for jpmorgan chase and chief executive officer of the mortgage banking unit there. After the housing crisis, the mortgage banking unit reported 2012 net income of 3.3 billion dollars, a turnaround that reversed a net loss of 2.1 billion dollars in the prior year. Before joining jpmorgan chase, Mr.
▶ 1:10:57Chair Crapo: Bisignano held several roles at citigroup including chief administrative officer for the corporate investment bank and ceo of their global transactions service business. The largest securities and cash management business in the world .
▶ 1:11:15Chair Crapo: While cao, he served as the firmwide deputy head of technology and operations, a post that he held during 9/11, when he deployed and ran the citigroup business continuity plan. Mr. bisignano, before you give your opening statement, I have four obligatory questions we ask all nominees before the senate finance committee.
▶ 1:11:41Chair Crapo: First, is there anything you are aware of and your background that might present a conflict of interest with the duties in the office which you been nominated?
▶ 1:11:48Mr. Bisignano: No, sir.
▶ 1:11:50Chair Crapo: Do you know of any reason, personal or otherwise, that would prevent you from fully and honorably discharging the responsibilities of the office to which you have been nominated?
▶ 1:12:03Mr. Bisignano: No, sir.
▶ 1:12:06Chair Crapo: Do you agree to -- fulfill summons?
▶ 1:12:13Mr. Bisignano: I agree.
▶ 1:12:15Chair Crapo: Do you commit to prompt responses in writing to any questions presented to you by any senator of this committee?
▶ 1:12:24Mr. Bisignano: Chair crapo:
▶ 1:12:26Chair Crapo: 100%. Before you begin your opening statement, please introduce your family.
▶ 1:12:31Mr. Bisignano: My wife, tracy, is here, and I have three children at home, morgan, alexa, henry. They all support me very, very much and are happy we are here today.
▶ 1:12:45Chair Crapo: Thank you. We welcome them in person and at home. You may begin your statement.
▶ 1:12:52Mr. Bisignano: Chairman crapo, ranking member wyden, members of the committee, I am frank bisignano and I'm honored to appear before you as the trump nominee for commissioner of the social security administration. The president was elected by the american people to make life better for americans. He has made to protecting and preserving social security an important part of his vision.
▶ 1:13:23Mr. Bisignano: Social security touches lives, the lives of nearly every american. Whether you are paying into it or seeking benefits. I am grateful for the faith the president has placed in me to lead this critical agency. I also want to thank my wife, tracy, who is here with me today, and my three children, morgan, alexa, and henry, who's support I rely on every day.
▶ 1:13:51Mr. Bisignano: I was born into a working-class family in brooklyn, new york, a multigenerational immigrant household. My maternal grandfather emigrated as a world war I veteran. My father, and orphaned by age 11, was a veteran of world war ii. They with my working mother were my role models. They instilled in me the virtues of service.
▶ 1:14:18Mr. Bisignano: It was also at home that I learned the importance of hard my father, a 46 year department of treasury employee, worked in customs enforcement. 40 ships early in the morning and sometimes wouldn't come home for days. He took pride in his job and he was awarded the admiral -- albert gallatin award. Is the hardest working person I've known.
▶ 1:14:49Mr. Bisignano: I began my professional life on wall street in the late 1970's and went on to serve in multiple leadership positions at citigroup and j.p. Morgan. I led large organizations through challenging times, and on 9/11 I never left lower manhattan. As chief administrative officer of citigroup, I helped ensure the world's largest banking system remained up and running in the face of the unthinkable tragedy.
▶ 1:15:19Mr. Bisignano: I had a responsibility for 16,000 people in lower manhattan and we managed to evacuate all but six. I will mourn that loss for my whole life. In 2008 at j.p. Morgan I played a critical role in keeping money moving through the financial crisis. In 2011 and 2012, I worked closely with the government to restart the housing market after the mortgage crisis.
▶ 1:15:47Mr. Bisignano: More recently, I was the ceo and chairman of first data where my team and I worked to transform the company from the world's largest traditional payment processor into a technology innovator, industry collaborator and commerce enabler. For the 21st century.
▶ 1:16:08Mr. Bisignano: In 2019, I led the merger of first data in pfizer where I'm currently -- fiserv where I'm currently ceo and chairman of the board. Fiserv fundamentally serves every american household. Our company today processes more than 250 million payments totaling more than two point $5 trillion a day. 70 4 million payments a month totaling $1.5 trillion a year.
▶ 1:16:40Mr. Bisignano: In 2020, during covid, I was called on by the government again and stepped up and we served the under banks. My friend colonel timothy dolan once said the only just government is government that serves its citizens, not itself. This is the belief I will bring to the social security administration.
▶ 1:17:05Mr. Bisignano: I will make the agency premier services organization as I've done multiple times with other institutions throughout my career. Fundamentally, social security is a payments-based customer-facing program that delivers benefits to more than 70 million americans each month. It provides essential financial support for the retired and disabled.
▶ 1:17:34Mr. Bisignano: We will meet beneficiaries where they want to be met, whether in person, in field offices, on the web, or on the phone. On the phone I'm committed to reducing wait times and providing beneficiaries with a better experience. Waiting 20 minutes plus to get an answer will be of yesteryear. I also believe we can significantly improve the length of the disability claim process.
▶ 1:18:03Mr. Bisignano: Importantly, I think a 1% error rate based on the inspector general report's five decimal places to high. We will get the error rate down and be more accurate in payments. Working in collaboration with the men and women of social security administration and you in congress, we will better serve the american people.
▶ 1:18:29Mr. Bisignano: Finally, at the core, this is a bipartisan job. Social security has field offices and serves americans in every state. In the wisdom of congress, we made social security an independent agency and gave the commissioner a six-year term. In me, you will have an accountable leader.
▶ 1:18:56Mr. Bisignano: I am thankful to president trump for considering me for this role and entrusting me with it. I also appreciate the courtesy you've extended by holding this hearing. I'm grateful for being here with you today and I'm happy to answer all questions. >> thank you very much, Mr. bisignano.
▶ 1:19:23Mr. Bisignano: My first question is one you've pretty much already answered, I'd just like to give you an opportunity to add any more completeness to what you described about how important it is to be sure that every american is served properly and efficiently by the social security administration. As you know, as we talked about, for years individuals seeking assistance have faced long wait times or even inability to gain access and the agency is now going under significant organizational changes.
▶ 1:19:55Mr. Bisignano: Could you just put a little more flavor into what you described as what your objectives are and how you will achieve them to make this agency responsible to the american people?
▶ 1:20:03Mr. Bisignano: I think first of all, it's an honor to be here and thank you for the time. This is a mission-critical function. It's a mission-critical function and it's been 89 years where over 200 million americans have been beneficiaries of payments. Today over 100 million americans pay into the system.
▶ 1:20:32Mr. Bisignano: And the ability to receive payments on time and accurately is job one. The ability to process any type of claim we receive is job one. And the ability to be available. I think we are going to focus on what we need to do to drive the 1% error rate down. That's a very high payment processing error rate, and I think the standard should be five decimal points to the right.
▶ 1:21:02Mr. Bisignano: I think that leads to better accuracy. I believe in running an organization with a multidisciplinary look. We have to deliver great service. We have to run a pristine control environment, so we do it right the first time. Efficiency will be the output of those two actions. We must put the beneficiaries first.
▶ 1:21:34Mr. Bisignano: This is according to all the public data I've looked at, this has been one of the less satisfied workforces for many years within all the government agencies, and I think when you are winning you feel good and when you are losing, you feel bad. And my objective is to come in and motivate the workforce we have. 50,000 plus.
▶ 1:22:02Mr. Bisignano: To be able to get a job right the first time for the american public. I think we have talent all over like any organization, and we have very dedicated people in there, but I think there's been a lot of leadership change. If you look at the history of commissioners, they've turned over quite a bit. I'm committed to a six-year term and to do a great job for the american public and the here for you. Thank you. >> thank you very much.
▶ 1:22:35Mr. Bisignano: I'm sure you've noticed the daily news on president trump's effort with the department of government efficiency, you heard about it today already and they that you will hear about it some more. The social security administration is one of the agencies that has received a lot of media attention regarding these efforts. For the record, are you currently at the social security administration?
▶ 1:22:56Mr. Bisignano: I am not, sir. >> have you been consulted by the acting commissioner about doge's work?
▶ 1:23:04Mr. Bisignano: I have not had a conversation about anything with the social security commissioner. >> thank you. And during a february 5 interview on cnbc you voice your support their work generally. Is there anything further you would like to add with respect to those comments?
▶ 1:23:24Mr. Bisignano: I've run a quality control and efficiency program and companies my whole life. I've always been overseen by the occ and the fed and control really matters a lot, so I've always considered myself an efficiency expert, but also a quality expert. If you look at my rankings when I took over the mortgage company in jd power, we went from the lowest to the highest performing.
▶ 1:23:52Mr. Bisignano: So my comments are that I'm happy to work with anybody who can help us, and I believe that I'm fundamentally about efficiency myself. >> thank you. Senator wyden?
▶ 1:24:05Senator Wyden: Thank you, Mr. chairman. My first question for the nominee is in the last two months, doge has been rampaging through social security. And I need to know first if you are responsible for some of this current chaos.
▶ 1:24:25Senator Wyden: So my first question is between the time you were nominated and today, were you involved in discussions about doge for any of the operation personnel or management decisions with doge working at social security>
▶ 1:24:38Mr. Bisignano: No, sir.
▶ 1:24:41Sen. Wyden: So that sounds like a reassuring response, but unfortunately it's not true. Mr. chairman, I have a statement from a senior official who work at social security and recently left the agency, and the nominee told my staff, yours, and me in my office that the nominee wasn't involved with any agency
▶ 1:25:11Sen. Wyden: Operations, personnel and management decisions. And the whistleblower statement says that the nominee insisted on personally approving several key doge hires at the agency, among other things, getting frequent briefings.
▶ 1:25:30Sen. Wyden: So the first thing I would like to do is put into the record the statement from this very high level official at the social security office. >> without objection.
▶ 1:25:43Sen. Wyden: So according to the whistleblower, you personally intervened to get key officials installed at the agency who have masterminded this shipwrecked that we are dealing with today. Did you talk to anyone at social security about these changes?
▶ 1:26:05Mr. Bisignano: I've never talked to Mr. dudek. I've talked to mike russo and I've said that to your staff when they asked me. I know mike russo, he was the cio of shift for, and he was the cio at oracle and I've known him for 20 years. I don't know him as a doge person, I know him as a cio.
▶ 1:26:32Sen. Wyden: So with respect then, anyone else, did you talk to any of these officials who were involved in operations, because the whistleblower said you personally intervened to get doge officials installed and I understand there's one person who got basically approved in the middle of the night as a result of your insistence.
▶ 1:27:02Sen. Wyden: Are you saying that the whistleblower is not telling the truth the senate finance committee? Because there are a number of very influential officials who have indicated that they will support the position of the whistleblower.
▶ 1:27:14Mr. Bisignano: I was not involved in onboarding anybody in the middle of the night.
▶ 1:27:18Sen. Wyden: Well, we've heard some pretty disturbing comments with respect to some of the officials, and I think we've got to get to the bottom of it. Let me ask you about the role of ushering in key officials who have been working through agency databases, feasting on the personal information of the american people, health records, bank account data, tax data.
▶ 1:27:51Sen. Wyden: Recklessness there has set off what could be the largest identity theft crisis in history. A federal judge ordered ssa to stop providing doge access. In her ruling the judge said and I quote "dpoge's bogus reasoning akin to a fishing expedition based on little more than suspicion." so my question to you here is if you are confirmed, will you lock doge out of social security databases and stop them from exposing millions of americans
▶ 1:28:21Sen. Wyden: Who could be damaged?
▶ 1:28:22Mr. Bisignano: Sir, I've spent my career protecting tii in the largest institutions. I think it's of the utmost importance for pii to be enteric -- protected and yes I will ensure it is protected.
▶ 1:28:35Sen. Wyden: So will you lock doge out. It is a very specific yes or no question. Will you lock doge out of social security databases?
▶ 1:28:45Mr. Bisignano: I'm going to do whatever is required to protect the information that is private information, so I don't know what lock doge out means, but there's way more than doge that can't have access to that information.
▶ 1:28:59Sen. Wyden: I would like that in writing that you will lock doge out of the social security databases, could you put that in writing?
▶ 1:29:07Mr. Bisignano: I don't know what lock doge out --
▶ 1:29:11Sen. Wyden: It's got a pretty simple concept when you lock somebody out. You stop them --
▶ 1:29:15Mr. Bisignano: There's lots of databases but pii will not be exposed.
▶ 1:29:20Sen. Wyden: Mr. chairman, I would like you and I and the committee to follow-up up on what this whistleblower has told us because your staff met with them, my staff met with them, I met with them, and I don't believe that this whistleblower would make this up.
▶ 1:29:39Sen. Wyden: This whistleblower has said that this is a nominee who will be bad for the agency and has cited specifics, and this nominee says that there whistleblower is wrong and I think this whistleblower throughout their career has been somebody who's told the truth in a think we better get to the bottom of it. They told your staff the same thing they told mind, that this nominee had nothing to do with operations and certainly some very experienced individuals feel that that was not true.
▶ 1:30:09Sen. Wyden: >> thank you. Senator whitehouse.
▶ 1:30:13Sen. Whitehouse: Welcome. I have two quick questions. I'm concerned on behalf of constituents with social security disability that there are cliffs in the benefit system that create very peculiar behavior around the edge of the cliff. I think we should engage in bipartisan cliffs-moving. Is that something you would work with us on?
▶ 1:30:36Mr. Bisignano: I am prepared to research it if I'm fortunate enough to be confirmed. I will go back and report back to you.
▶ 1:30:45Sen. Whitehouse: If you are confirmed, will you check and make sure that the musk infiltration of social security databases has not damaged those databases or left back doors for private actors to get back into to access social security's data system?
▶ 1:31:01Mr. Bisignano: There will be a total review, yes.
▶ 1:31:04Sen. Whitehouse: So here's where I think we are. I think there is a bit of a plot afoot here. Step one is to lie about not intending to damage social security and to protect social security benefits.
▶ 1:31:23Sen. Whitehouse: The president is a profligate liar, russia didn't invade ukraine, the election was rigged and stolen from me, I'm not a criminal, doj was weaponized, climate change is a hoax. He just can't stop allies. I'm not going to attack social security, is a lie. So that is step one, why about it. Step two is discredit social security.
▶ 1:31:52Sen. Whitehouse: Trump and must have been lying loudly about imaginary social ready fraud which seems to me to be an effort to lower public confidence in the program. They falsely called a ponzi scheme. If those things are true, why are they saying then? What is the motive? I think the motive is to discredit the system. Then you send in your musk characters and you start them messing around in the operation of social security to damage it.
▶ 1:32:22Sen. Whitehouse: And as we were sitting here, here comes the breaking news the washington post. Headline, social security is breaking down amid long waits, waves of calls, and web crashes. A flood of cuts led by elon musk have set the agency into meltdown as a new commissioner, you, prepare to take charge.
▶ 1:32:47Sen. Whitehouse: So you also have the billionaire commerce secretary saying that an interruption of benefits would be a good way to sniff out fraud because only people who complain when their benefits are interrupted with the fraudsters, which is idiotic, frankly, but it is part of this campaign to disrupt as well as discredit social security so that there is then an interruption of benefits.
▶ 1:33:16Sen. Whitehouse: Once there is an interruption of benefits, then trump can declare an emergency of social security and send in the text grows and the private equity folks, some of food are already messing around in social security to say to say social security, we have to take it over. We've got to have the tech bros in the private equity people take over social security, and then that's it.
▶ 1:33:44Sen. Whitehouse: A long-standing republican goal of getting rid of social security as a public program is achieved. And under the pretense that they've saved it. Broken it in order to save it. Let's just say that that turns out to be fact. But you've determined to be the accurate case once you get over there. Would you participate in or defend against that scheme?
▶ 1:34:11Mr. Bisignano: I think my job as a commissioner is to ensure that every beneficiary receive their payments on time, that disability claims are processed in the manner they should be. So my first actions are going to be to get organized around delivering the services, and I've only been given one order, which is to run the agency in the right fashion.
▶ 1:34:40Sen. Whitehouse: And what will bringing in private equity and tech people and giving elon musk and his little crowd a role have in all of that?
▶ 1:34:53Mr. Bisignano: I've never thought about privatizing. It's not a word that anybody has ever talked to me about, and I don't see this institution as anything other than a government agency that is run for the benefit of the american public.
▶ 1:35:07Sen. Whitehouse: Let's hope that that is the way this ends. Thank you.
▶ 1:35:11Mr. Bisignano: You have my guarantee I will make it and that way.
▶ 1:35:18Chair: Thank you, senator cassidy.
▶ 1:35:22Senator Cassidy: Good to meet your family in new orleans at the super bowl. I was struck when I asked, I forget how much social security puts out per day, and I asked you want to take that on and you said I handle five times that much per day right now. To say I was struck, this is what I do and I do it in a way which improves service. And then you pointed to where we were eating, this is one of my machines.
▶ 1:35:51Senator Cassidy: By the way it took my money very quickly for the pizza I bought. So just to thank you for offering that and bringing your incredible skill set of this issue.
▶ 1:35:59Mr. Bisignano: Thank you sir.
▶ 1:36:00Sen. Cassidy: Part of it we talked about was public facing service. Particularly among older people who sometimes have a difficult time getting to the office. And they rely upon the phone because frankly, they are homebound.
▶ 1:36:23Sen. Cassidy: How will you continue to provide services to those folks who are homebound, making sure that they can still access, make changes as necessary, even if they have a difficult time coming in physically?
▶ 1:36:34Mr. Bisignano: Today social security according to public information gets 80 million phone calls a year. In the organization I currently run, we would do 400 million phone calls a year. I see the phone as a mandatory way for people to communicate. I see phone technology as an opportunity, but at some point people want to talk to a live agent also, so we have to provide that.
▶ 1:37:09Mr. Bisignano: I think it's mandatory, part of meeting beneficiaries where they want to give matt whether it is in the field office, on the web or on the phone. Obviously, ultimately people like sometimes to get reassurance from a person that they are going to get the benefits.
▶ 1:37:29Sen. Cassidy: There is chronic wait times on the one 800 number. So much so that people sometimes give up. There's evidence it's improved, but still not where you would have the private sector.
▶ 1:37:41Mr. Bisignano: My belief is that if you look at the social security website and you look at the statistics, taking 20 plus minutes to answer the phone is not really acceptable. And that's the reason why only 46% of phone calls get answered, because people get discouraged and hang up.
▶ 1:38:02Mr. Bisignano: Using your experience, how could that be improved?
▶ 1:38:07Mr. Bisignano: I think we could get that to under a minute. I think we could get that under a minute. I think we could also help the people within the organization answer questions that are by bringing artificial intelligence to them, to prompt them with the information they need. It enhances their jobs. As I said before, social security ranks at the low-end of employee government systems today, but I believe technology is the great enabler.
▶ 1:38:41Mr. Bisignano: We do not need to rewrite every system within social security, we do not need to spend lots of money on many of these things. We can do them with basic technology that is out there.
▶ 1:38:53Sen. Cassidy: That was one of those things that reassure me. All of these things that seemed to be insurmountable, you had done it. So thank you for bringing that expertise to us. Sometimes beneficiaries are overpaid, and then they contacted later to recoup the money.
▶ 1:39:15Sen. Cassidy: It's one thing for somebody who is well-off to pay back and another thing for somebody who basically lives on cash flow and then you are asked to repay that, which is a big spend. How do we stop one of the overpayments and then when it is detected, how are we fair to the people who have been overpaid taking into account their ability to repay?
▶ 1:39:38Mr. Bisignano: I think there's two things there. One is, as I like to say, the inspector general report produces a 1% error rate. I think that is way too high. I think it should be decimal points to the right, probably five. That would eliminate a lot of the overpayments. And then at the end of the day, we need to evaluate the ability to pay back and work it out.
▶ 1:40:12Mr. Bisignano: There was one way to do it, we've implemented another. I'm going to make sure that we recover all the money we should recover, but on the other hand, we have to be humans in the process.
▶ 1:40:23Sen. Cassidy: I have a couple questions I will do for the record. Thank you very much for bringing your private expertise to benefit the public. Thank you.
▶ 1:40:33Chair: Senator lankford.
▶ 1:40:35Senator Lankford: Thank you for stepping into this role. Stepping in with the expertise and the experience you have on the technical side for so many different people, quite frankly is a real asset to social so let me just run several things past you. I did want to be able to raise one thing.
▶ 1:41:08Senator Lankford: My state is one of the few states that has not been able to do the social security portal based on just the id portion of that, that some of the career for support on for a long time. That has finally been checked and I read full to a lot of the career folks engaged in social dirty for a while to be able to work to be able to get that. That's going to help a lot of the customer service issues in my state in particular on this.
▶ 1:41:35Senator Lankford: But as senator cassidy was just raising as well, the call and response times, getting an appointment, it may be surprising to some people that there are a few 85-year-old that aren't tech savvy, that they don't like using a computer, they want to actually talk to a person, and the challenge is still how did they get into the able to get an appointment, number one, get a time, and then get it done in a timely manner?
▶ 1:42:01Senator Lankford: That is a good thing for a lot of folks, working on the phone call cited. What is your plan on the face-to-face portion of social security services as well?
▶ 1:42:09Mr. Bisignano: I think we have to meet beneficiaries where they want to be. And I think that includes field offices, that includes the phone, that includes technology on the phone, and that includes a live agent if they want to talk to somebody.
▶ 1:42:27Mr. Bisignano: And obviously the web is a place that we can also interact, but I think it's about a multichannel system and giving the ability to use the channel that one wants to use in order to accomplish that sure they want to get done with.
▶ 1:42:44Sen. Lankford: One of the things that you and I have talked about already, and thank you for this, is about the disability determination. That process gas -- process can be two or three years long. There's a lot of aspects of it that end up taking a very long time to just get an answer on it. The reconsideration process is certainly broken and takes a tremendous matter of time for something they already know to be able to go through again. There are a lot of challenges in this process.
▶ 1:43:12Sen. Lankford: As you walk into this, I'm not going to ask how you are going to fix it, I would raise you this is an issue you said you were already aware of. How do you begin the process of trying to reform the disability review so that disabled individuals don't have to wait three years to actually get into that process and people that are not qualified can get an answer faster?
▶ 1:43:35Mr. Bisignano: First of all, thank you for the time in your office. You enlightened me a lot and your dialogue with me around this process. My first objective would be to process engineering from front to back, understand really what is taking what amount of time.
▶ 1:43:55Mr. Bisignano: We also talked about the job and the fact that one person who maybe 30 years ago was determined to be disabled and wasn't highly motivated by the system to be able to work, today we could do something different.
▶ 1:44:15Mr. Bisignano: So one of the third -- first things I'm going to look at is all of those elements that we talked about in your office, and I'm positive that when you analyze something from front to back and you think about the age of today vs. 30 years ago that we could get a lot better answer for americans.
▶ 1:44:32Sen. Lankford: We can. There are folks that have great needs that qualify for disability that congress has actually said the american people are going to stand alongside of them. It takes years to get to that process. And there are others trying to game the system. They need an answer faster to say you were able to work and we want you to be able to do that, we are americans, it is what we do.
▶ 1:45:01Sen. Lankford: The death master file, we've got about 915,000 people still listed in a bit of that. Still need clarification on that from the inspector general from 2024. And on the opposite side of that, multiple people using the exact same social security number to apply for a job that shows up just as a social security number in the process. So we've got some numbers use multiple times, we've got that in 15,000 of the file they just need to be clarified.
▶ 1:45:32Sen. Lankford: Are they alive or not, so if that is a technology piece, we are going to count on you to be able to figure out how to be able to clearly identify that, make decisions and get it back out. Appreciate your time and your leadership and for your willingness to step into this role.
▶ 1:45:48Share: Senator hassan.
▶ 1:45:49Senator Hassan: Good morning, it was very nice to visit with you in our office and congratulations to you and your family for your nomination. Before turning to social security issues, I want to ask you a simple question that I'm asking every nominee now related to recent events. If directed by the president to take an action that would break the law, would you follow the law or for the president's directive?
▶ 1:46:15Mr. Bisignano: Well I would follow the law, but I can ever imagine that the president would ask that.
▶ 1:46:23Sen. Hassan: Well I'm glad you would follow the law. I challenge the notion that you can't imagine this president instructing somebody to break the law. I won't go through the litany, but there are plenty of examples of him since he took office. Now I want to move on to social security. Elon musk and president trump have set their sights on cutting social security, medicare and medicaid to pay for tax cuts for corporate special interests and billionaires.
▶ 1:46:51Sen. Hassan: Elon musk is referred to social security as a ponzi scheme, and he recently called for cutting up to $700 billion from social security and medicare. That could mean cutting one third of these programs. Social security operates, as you know, on simple math. To achieve a one third cut you would either have to take away benefits from one third of the people currently receiving them or cut the payments they are getting by one third. So which is it?
▶ 1:47:21Sen. Hassan: Are you going to throw one third of the people off of the program, or cut their benefits by one third?
▶ 1:47:25Mr. Bisignano: Neither.
▶ 1:47:28Sen. Hassan: That's good to hear. So if the president and the congress decide to cap these benefits you are going to stand up for the beneficiaries?
▶ 1:47:37Sen. Hassan: Well if congress decides, I mean ultimately the decisions get done in the senate finance committee, is a collaboration, it's not the commissioner's job to make that decision.
▶ 1:47:48Sen. Hassan: So do you oppose cutting one third of social security benefits?
▶ 1:47:54Mr. Bisignano: I think the president has made it very clear that he has no objective and he has made it very clear to cut any benefits from social security. >> yet he has elon musk who until he was told he couldn't by a court running rampant through social security, and he's laying off staff and making it much more difficult for people to get benefits. That's inconsistent with the president's pledge.
▶ 1:48:24Mr. Bisignano: If you were confirmed, we do commit to stand up to elon musk and doge and stop them from cutting one third of social security benefits which must has already said he wants to do?
▶ 1:48:33Mr. Bisignano: Well, I've worked for tony trischka out of, I've worked for jamie diamond, I've worked for henry kravitz, I've worked with them. I have the ability to leave the agency in the manner that the senate finance committee wants me to do that, and I don't know of any thought that I have about cutting one third of the benefits of americans or even
▶ 1:49:06Mr. Bisignano: Entertaining anything of that sort.
▶ 1:49:06Sen. Hassan: I appreciate that. I think I will echo the ranking member's request that we get a commitment from you that you will keep doge at a social security because one of the things we are seeing since this administration took over his steps that are making it harder and harder for people. To apply for benefits, to get benefits, and really working to slow things down.
▶ 1:49:29Sen. Hassan: Which is one way, of course, of slowing benefits, flowing benefit payments, and reducing costs at the expense the beneficiaries. Let me turn to enhance your tissue. One in five granite staters receive social security benefits that they paid into for their entire lives. Earlier this month at the direction of elon musk, the administration announced plans to close 47 social security offices including the one in wilton, new hampshire.
▶ 1:50:02Sen. Hassan: Shortly thereafter the social security administration announced plans that would force more applicants and beneficiaries to go in person to offices, while at the same time laying off staff who work in those were meaning offices. If the littleton office is closed, north country seniors would be forced to travel nearly 100 miles to the next closest new hampshire field office. If confirmed, will you commit to keeping the littleton social security office open, or will you do what elon musk commands you to do on this issue?
▶ 1:50:31Mr. Bisignano: I can't be running the agency and report to the president running the agency , so I just want to be very clear on that. I will evaluate the whole situation and I will report back to you.
▶ 1:50:45Sen. Hassan: And Mr. chair, I would like with unanimous consent to offer into the record this archived copy of the listing by doge that includes the littleton new hampshire social security office as one that they would like to close.
▶ 1:51:04Sen. Hassan: And last thing, I will submit this for the record, but I do want to note that congress act -- commerce secretary nominee caffe justin that seniors would mind if the social security administration didn't send out benefits one month and that only fraudsters would complain, and I will ask the nominee to reflect on how long he would be ok delaying social security checks to seniors. Thank you. >> thank you, Mr. chair.
▶ 1:51:39Sen. Hassan: Thank you so much for meeting with me. I appreciate it. Welcome, congratulations on your nomination, welcome to your family. Let me get a couple questions out of the way, and hopefully they just have this candid conversation and carry through like we did in my office. Recently in an interview with joe rogan on fairbury 28, elon musk on social security the biggest ponzi scheme of all time. Do you believe that social security is a ponzi scheme?
▶ 1:52:06Mr. Bisignano: I believe it is a promise to pay, it is an 89 your institution. It will continue. >> yes or no do you think it is a ponzi scheme?
▶ 1:52:16Mr. Bisignano: It is a promise to pay. >> kenny podcast appearance last week, howard let nick suggested that only fraudsters would complain about missing his social security check and that most people wouldn't mind if the government simply skipped a payment. Steve agree that only fraudsters complain when the government fails to send social security checks?
▶ 1:52:36Mr. Bisignano: I don't think anyone would appreciate not paying their social security check on time.
▶ 1:52:43Sen. Cortez Masto: Say that again.
▶ 1:52:45Mr. Bisignano: I said I don't think anyone would appreciate not getting their social security check on time.
▶ 1:52:53Sen. Cortez Masto: So you would agree they are not fraudsters.
▶ 1:52:55Mr. Bisignano: I don't -- I'm answering what you asked.
▶ 1:53:01Sen. Cortez Masto: That's the question. His implication is if your question whether you got your check or not you're probably a fraudster. Would you agree with that? >> it is hard to get to that conclusion.
▶ 1:53:13Sen. Cortez Masto: Pardon?
▶ 1:53:14Mr. Bisignano: It would be hard to get to that conclusion.
▶ 1:53:17Sen. Cortez Masto: The social security, current social security administrator briefly ended a contract that had allowed parents of newborn babies in maine to sign their children up for social security at the hospital. Instead he required them to do so in person at an office. The current administrator, according to a new york times article said he had ordered the move after watching governor janet mills clash with Mr. trump at the white house.
▶ 1:53:47Sen. Cortez Masto: He then quickly reversed that decision, but said he did it because he felt that the governor of maine was not being real cordial the president. Do you think social security should be used as a political weapon against individuals in the future?
▶ 1:54:04Mr. Bisignano: It's the most bipartisan thing we have. I believe it's job is to deliver for the american population.
▶ 1:54:11Sen. Cortez Masto: I agree, but do you think it should be used as a political weapon at the whim of somebody who wants to show fealty to the president?
▶ 1:54:21Mr. Bisignano: I don't think it should be.
▶ 1:54:24Sen. Cortez Masto: Good, that's the right answer because everything up until now has agreed that we should get the benefits out to individuals, that we should ensure that the focus is making those that need this disability benefit or who have worked hard their entire lives and are entitled to these benefits really get them. So I appreciate that comment. Let me also jump back to a couple of questions.
▶ 1:54:51Sen. Cortez Masto: The social security administrator, let me jump to this. More than 570,000 nevadans rely on social security after paying into it for decades, yet a face long wait times and inaccessible offices, problem that only worsened under the so-called efficiency measures introduced by doge. Doge has cut staff, it feels offices and shifted services online.
▶ 1:55:18Sen. Cortez Masto: I'm hopeful that you're going to address this issue, it is you think about moving into this office, what are you going to do based on all of the complaints that we are hearing now, more so than before. This administration came into office, how do you expect to address these issues?
▶ 1:55:34Mr. Bisignano: I may add a test of the executive -- battle tested the executive. In the mortgage crisis I was asked to work shoulder to shoulder with the government, I figured out how to clean up a pretty big mess.
▶ 1:55:49Sen. Cortez Masto: So would you reverse some of the decisions that he felt that they were inappropriate, that they were fighting to get beneficiaries the benefits they need?
▶ 1:55:57Mr. Bisignano: Any decision I thought was inappropriate would be looked at. All issues.
▶ 1:56:03Sen. Cortez Masto: And you would be willing to reverse it if you felt it was appropriate?
▶ 1:56:09Mr. Bisignano: If something was inappropriate, it would be changed.
▶ 1:56:12Sen. Cortez Masto: And finally, there's a lot of concern, and rightfully so about individuals who don't even work in the administration, they are actually rifling to the personal information of americans. And I'm hopeful that you are going to guard that personal information for anybody who has provided to social security. Are you willing to protect their private information?
▶ 1:56:37Mr. Bisignano: I've done that my whole career. That would be a yes. >> senator marshall: thank you, and welcome. We appreciate you answering the call that this is a job you don't need, this is a job that you don't covet, but instead you are one of the patriots stepping forward to help save this nation.
▶ 1:57:06Mr. Bisignano: We heard some fear mongering this morning and I just want to reassure americans that republicans are the party that wants to save social security. That we want to ensure that the folks who have paid into social security their whole lives, who have earned these benefits get the money that they were promised. And I also want to remind americans that we are the party that wants to stop the taxing of social security benefits as well.
▶ 1:57:32Mr. Bisignano: We want americans to keep more of their hard-earned money and not have to pay a tax on this benefit that they paid into their whole lives. The social security administration had probably $10 billion in improper payments in 2023. I think it's a lot more than that. Can you explain how you use your past experience and payments processing to bring down these improper payments?
▶ 1:57:56Mr. Bisignano: I think my past experience beyond payment processing, but I think in this case it is good to talk about in a broader sense. I think every error requires analysis of why it happened. There are no one-off's.
▶ 1:58:16Mr. Bisignano: My lifetime of experience shows is pattern recognition, and the fact that we produce in the inspector general reports a 1% error rate, that is completely too high for the function we are talking about.
▶ 1:58:37Sen. Marshall: In your best experience, what was your error rate?
▶ 1:58:38Mr. Bisignano: Five decimal points to the right. That is what the target would be. So if you think about that type of error rate running through the agency, it creates the opportunity for more problems than we need. Ultimately, we are talking about quality of service to our beneficiaries.
▶ 1:59:08Mr. Bisignano: I know that there's lots of stats that are produced but when I go on and look at the stats they are not at the level that you also accept or that I will accept without the american public should accept.
▶ 1:59:21Sen. Marshall: Certainly one way of stating social security is by delimiting or decreasing these improper payments. I don't think anyone can argue against that. This talk about customer experience. How would you use your background to improve processing times and customer service? >> I think much of this is what I engineering, understanding the are creating back logs. I don't know if those standards are appropriate yet.
▶ 1:59:52Sen. Marshall: We have a six-month month standard on disability, that takes much longer. A lot of things we need to go analyze. But I don't believe that this is going to take us years. I think there's many things we can solve in year one. And that would be my expectation, bring a sense of urgency, and I want the people in the agency to feel like they are winning.
▶ 2:00:20Sen. Marshall: Let's talk about americans personally identifiable information. All of us from credit cards to banks, even this week I got another alert from health insurance that our data has been violated. What has your experience been like in the private world protect identifiable information, and how can you improve and protect that? Is this a priority for you?
▶ 2:00:45Mr. Bisignano: It is job one. If you are running a financial institution, it is job one. And if you're on fiserv, it is job one. You must have the trust, and that is something pii, as we call it, needs the highest level of scrutiny and protection.
▶ 2:01:10Mr. Bisignano: And we need to understand who can access what information and ensure that that information is anonymized so they are not getting data that they could use in a bad way. >> my last question, let's talk about the I.t. System that you use, you in the past. What can you do from an it standpoint to improve social security efficiency and improve customer experience? >> I think technology is the great enabler. You don't have to throw a cistern out, you have to figure out how to make it work better.
▶ 2:01:42Mr. Bisignano: You have to understand how to make yourself more efficient. I think one of the greatest efficiency opportunities we have is you -- using artificial intelligence. That doesn't mean we use it for answering the phone, it means we use it to learn how to do our work better. I don't think these are monumental economic spends, I think we can do them.
▶ 2:02:02Sen. Marshall: Thank you, you are hired.
▶ 2:02:05Mr. Bisignano: Thank you, sir. >> senator johnson.
▶ 2:02:09Senator Johnson: First of all, thank you for your willingness to serve. I have to compliment president trump and his team, I can't imagine them finding more qualified individuals for this position. Not kidding. It's pretty remarkable. First of all, the president trump or anybody on his team interview you in deciding to make this nomination, did any of them ever talk about cutting benefits for social security?
▶ 2:02:36Mr. Bisignano: No, as a matter of fact.
▶ 2:02:41Sen. Johnson: It's doing everything we can to protect social security, correct? You mentioned in previous answers here that the 1% error rate is too high. I want you to compare the I.t. Systems, the processing, the payment processing that you've done at fiserv and other companies to social security.
▶ 2:03:08Sen. Johnson: Just give the committee some sense of your depth of experience in dealing with these things versus social security.
▶ 2:03:13Mr. Bisignano: We have 13,000 software engineers here at fiserv. To believe we are fundamentally a tech company that provides payments, 100% of the american households. A lot I've heard is about the old system at social security. I actually believed that the system we have.
▶ 2:03:42Mr. Bisignano: And we know how to build around it.
▶ 2:03:44Sen. Johnson: You have that at fiserv?
▶ 2:03:46Mr. Bisignano: It's all over the world.
▶ 2:03:49Sen. Johnson: So it would be back from that.
▶ 2:03:52Mr. Bisignano: It's going to be dealt with. It's not a problem. One of the things I say is there's no substitution for experience, I believe that. And I think I'm the first commissioner that's actually been a technologist and operator, understands payments, has run call centers, has done settlements, understood how to deal in crises, whether it's 9/11 or whether it was the
▶ 2:04:23Mr. Bisignano: Mortgage crisis. So I come with a depth of experience in how to make systems work for the people inside the agency, and for other uses.
▶ 2:04:34Sen. Johnson: Do you have off the top of your head just the annual number of payments made to virtually every household in america?
▶ 2:04:43Mr. Bisignano: We do 250 million payments a day for $2.5 trillion. $74 million a month at social security. >> talk about that 1% error rate.
▶ 2:05:02Mr. Bisignano: Five decimal points to the right. I think five decimal points to the right. And we are always trying to strive to get that better. I think about answering the phone in less than a minute, we do it in 22 minutes right now.
▶ 2:05:19Sen. Johnson: I know you are not commission so you don't necessarily have this answer but what do you think drives the much higher error rate in social security? Is it the tax code, is that the inefficiency of the system?
▶ 2:05:36Mr. Bisignano: I think it is that we accept it.
▶ 2:05:39Sen. Johnson: Pardon?
▶ 2:05:40Mr. Bisignano: I think we've excepted it.
▶ 2:05:42Sen. Johnson: So it is something you think with your experience, you can fix.
▶ 2:05:47Mr. Bisignano: Yes sir.
▶ 2:05:48Sen. Johnson: I hate to open up a can of worms, but do you have any idea what senator wyden and senator whitehouse were talking about in terms of these whistleblowers? Do you want to take an opportunity to just address what allegations they were throwing your way?
▶ 2:06:03Mr. Bisignano: I don't, really. I don't know about the whistleblowers. I know that I brought, rousseau sent me a note and he came in at the cio for a long time, and that is kind of get.
▶ 2:06:28Sen. Johnson: Obviously the other side of the aisle has a real problem trying to make government more efficient, and yet I'm a huge supporter of elon musk and his group are doing. I don't understand why they are not, quite honestly. So again, I think someone like elon musk, someone like yourself, these are accomplished individuals with a depth of experience, and they are asking questions of government that have never been asked before.
▶ 2:06:58Sen. Johnson: We are not given access to this information, you have to be inside the administration to ask these questions.
▶ 2:07:04Mr. Bisignano: I think first of all, it's a multidimensional issue. We need to deliver service, we need to deliver quality, we need to deliver control and we need to deliver efficiency. It's battle tested, I believe I'm bad or tested. I know how to do all of those. And I view doge as an input. The president has been very clear the agency heads are in charge of the agency.
▶ 2:07:33Sen. Johnson: I can't imagine somebody more qualified for this position. You've got my support and thanks for your willingness to serve. >> senator daines.
▶ 2:07:46Senator Daines: Congratulations on your nomination and your willingness to serve. Since the establishment was first established, the important of the public trust has always been integral to that core mission. I want to cut to the chase on customer service if I might. Like senator johnson I spent most of my career in the private sector. Customer service is paramount.
▶ 2:08:14Senator Daines: In fact after I left procter & gamble and went to work for the customer experience solution, we work with call centers to make sure that the customer was getting a great experience. So as we prepare for this hearing yesterday, I asked my team, which just see what it's like to call the social security administration. So we went online and there is a nice little box that says we are here to help and I realized we are going to be coming in here to fix some of the problems.
▶ 2:08:42Senator Daines: This is not happening on your watch but I want to make you aware of the customer experience my staff member experienced when they called the 800 number we are here to help. So to recant what happen here, first of all, they were disconnected twice and they got on the phone. I'm going to read the message here.
▶ 2:09:12Senator Daines: Call the ssa number three times. Disconnected twice after two minutes. And this is the published we are here to help 800 number. Finally got through to speak to a representative and here is what my staff member encountered for an hour.
▶ 2:09:33Senator Daines: ♪ they could have at least had olivia newton-john or some 70's music. For an hour this repeated over and over again and then they were disconnected. You can't make this up. I would encourage anybody to try calling the number.
▶ 2:10:12Senator Daines: Disconnected three times. The third time after waiting an hour listening to these really d-great elevator music. So we got a lot of work to new to serve the taxpayers in this country and improve the customer experience. And I realize this isn't happening on your watch, but maybe try calling the one 800 number and see what it is like for your own experience. This is literally yesterday.
▶ 2:10:43Senator Daines: As you begin looking at areas for innovation and improvements and the delivery of the vital services and benefits, will you commit to me and to my office to ensure that montanans have access to social security, particularly for montanans who live in berlin areas? -- rural areas?
▶ 2:11:02Mr. Bisignano: My belief is first of all, thank you for talking about the phone service, because although we publish a 22 minute wait time, that is an average wait time.
▶ 2:11:20Mr. Bisignano: And I think a better way to measure that over the long haul is what percentage of calls get answered within 30 seconds, right, because we have percentages of calls that are taking an hour and a half. And only half the callers get through. So I bring that up because I have a multi channel strategy I think which is to meet beneficiaries where they want to be.
▶ 2:11:51Mr. Bisignano: If they want to come to a field office, if they want to do it over the phone or if they want to do it over the web. But all three of those channels have to execute well. They have to execute well. So it's not enough to just have them. We have to be able to also use all the technology available to do a great job for a beneficiaries. So you have my commitment to work on all of it.
▶ 2:12:17Sen. Daines: Thank. One of the challenges we face often times in the post customer service hours, particularly with call centers is that call centers are open when many people are not available because they are at work. And then when they are available, the call center is closed.
▶ 2:12:36Sen. Daines: So we just described the multi channel type approach, whether it is a web experience getting information directly from the internet, whether it is a call, whether it is in email, to really lock in on service levels that we can make sure we are providing to our customers, the taxpayers of this country, and those beneficiaries who have been paying that system their entire life.
▶ 2:13:02Sen. Daines: They deserve a lot better and I hope you will bring much-needed change to the social security administration with your leadership. Thank you.
▶ 2:13:10Mr. Bisignano: Thank you sir. >> senator sanders.
▶ 2:13:15Senator Sanders: Thank you very much, welcome. In your opening remarks, you mentioned that last year the inspector general reported that the error rate of social security was less than 1%, and it was an error rate that you wanted to improve, am I right?
▶ 2:13:32Mr. Bisignano: Yes sir.
▶ 2:13:33Sen. Daines: Ok. But in a state of the union address listened to by millions and millions of americans, president trump suggested that "millions and millions" of social security checks are going out to people who are between the ages of 140 and 360 years old. Millions and millions of checks.
▶ 2:13:59Sen. Daines: You've just acknowledged what is c1 -- you just acknowledge what is true, 99 point whatever of the people who get their checks paid into the system deserve those checks. What I want to ask you is, do you think that the president was just expressing an outrageous lie, which I happen to believe, trying to undermine social security? Or was he just grossly uninformed about the reality?
▶ 2:14:32Mr. Bisignano: I think that what the president was representing it was further proven to be accurate when represented again, there were millions of social security records that did not have people deceased.
▶ 2:14:51Sen. Sanders: Let's not play with words. What you have just acknowledged is that in 20, the social security administration paid out over 99 point whatever percent to people eligible. The error rate was less than 1%. Millions and millions and millions of people, 200 or 300 years of age, did not get checks. Is that true?
▶ 2:15:21Mr. Bisignano: What I represented was that a 1% error rate in a mission-critical function like social security is way too high.
▶ 2:15:33Sen. Sanders: I agree. Excuse me, I don't have much time. The president said millions and millions of people. You are saying, you are right, less than 1%. You want to improve it, you are right. Let's prove it. The president was lying and was trying to undermine the foundations of social security by saying the system was out of control. All right, my next question is senator daines gimp made a good point, called social security today a disaster.
▶ 2:16:02Sen. Sanders: Why, if right now, it is hard for people to get through in vermont and all over this country, why do you think the social security administration is now closing down offices and laying off 7000 employees and we have heard that they want to cut up to half of social security when the department is now understaffed, people cannot get through. Do you think it makes sense to lay off half the staff?
▶ 2:16:32Mr. Bisignano: First and foremost, I'm not there, sir.
▶ 2:16:36Sen. Sanders: Answer the question, sir. I know you're not there. Do you think it makes sense to lay off half the staff when right now they are at a 50 year low in terms of staffing?
▶ 2:16:46Mr. Bisignano: I don't, I don't, I don't know where he gets his information from, and I don't communicate with him.
▶ 2:16:54Sen. Sanders: I'm just asking you. I think that what the senator said was right. Tough to get through right now. Common sense would suggest that if it's bad now, you don't lay off half the staff. Would you agree with me?
▶ 2:17:07Mr. Bisignano: I believe that we can drive efficiency for the rest of our life. I also understand that it takes 20 plus minutes to answer the phone.
▶ 2:17:19Sen. Sanders: On a good day.
▶ 2:17:20Mr. Bisignano: That's the average published, right? That's not how I would report the numbers.
▶ 2:17:26Sen. Sanders: All I'm asking is that when you have a system not working n you have a system not working out, have a system not working out, isave a system not working out, is ve a system not working out, is it a system not working out, is it a great not working out, is it a great idea to lay off half the employees?
▶ 2:17:33Mr. Bisignano: Do I think it's a great idea to lay off half the idea -- half the staff when a system isn't working? I would say no.
▶ 2:17:42Sen. Sanders: Philosophical, if you like, I understand, correct me if I'm wrong, you made $100 million recently in a -- and compensation in a given year. My question is not to deal with that, per se, but right now 22% of seniors are trying to survive on less than $15,000 per year. Older people living in desperation and america. Some of us want to expand social security benefits because we think people should not be living on $15,000 per year.
▶ 2:18:13Sen. Sanders: We are concerned about the solvency of social security and want to extend it beyond where it is right now. Do you agree with me that it doesn't make sense for someone like yourself or makes 100 million dollars per year in compensation to be paying the same amount into social security as someone who makes 170 6000? Or would you work with me to raise money in the cap?
▶ 2:18:33Mr. Bisignano: I know that there is an actuarial function. I'm a fact-based, rule-based person. I'm happy to study anything and work side-by-side with you, sir.
▶ 2:18:45Sen. Sanders: I'm saying right now the system is stressed, financially. The system is stressed financially and we want to increase the solvency and the benefits. Is it a good idea to remove the cap, now at $174,000, so that wealthy people can contribute more into the system?
▶ 2:19:04Mr. Bisignano: I don't think that that is the job of the commissioner. The job of the commissioner is to run the agency right. I'm happy to provide all the information you want and be a partner in solving problems.
▶ 2:19:15Sen. Sanders: Thank you very much.
▶ 2:19:16Chair Crapo: Senator cantwell?
▶ 2:19:19Senator Cantwell: I want to follow on my two colleagues in their questions about the operation. You know, it's clear, you know, I think a lot of the american people are bothered by billionaires taking a shot at their social security. I think it sounds out of touch. Secretary let mixing stop payments. Mr.
▶ 2:19:43Senator Cantwell: Mosk, who everybody is questioning what his role is anyway, the big one to eliminate, that's what he was saying, social security. So, those are enough, right? Those are enough. But now we have these patterns. Let's go after the staffing. Let's go after the office closures. The new requirement to reregister.
▶ 2:20:11Senator Cantwell: The american people are scared to death that you are really going after social security. So, instead of hiring people, like my colleagues are suggesting, to improve the service, basically you are allowing elon musk and the doge team to go in there and find fraud. So, did they find a dead person in seattle getting social security? Yes. Here's the article.
▶ 2:20:43Senator Cantwell: Wait, he wasn't dead. Not only did my constituent not get his payment in february, they went to his bank account and tried to claw back previous payments from january and december. What did he do? He had to go to the building in seattle, the federal building that you are trying to close and stand in line for hours and hours and hours to try to say he wasn't dead and to stop taking his money.
▶ 2:21:12Senator Cantwell: He made an in person appointment, but it was pushed back 11 days. 11 days. Ultimately, he had to wait in line, as I said, to which she said that they are so understaffed down there, they think their office is about to be closed down and they don't know where they are going to go. It feels like the agency is being gutted. ".
▶ 2:21:37Senator Cantwell: I have to ask you, why are we allowing these people to go in and cause havoc to our constituents instead of hiring people to do the job? So, I have several questions. If you could just answer yes or no. Do you think that social security is a ponzi scheme?
▶ 2:21:54Mr. Bisignano: I've said I believe it's a promise to pay and it's been here for 89 years. It's been one of the truest things we have. My objective is to continue it into a great job for the american public.
▶ 2:22:13Sen. Cantwell: Do you think that social security should be privatized?
▶ 2:22:17Mr. Bisignano: I've never heard a word of it or thought about it.
▶ 2:22:20Mr. Bisignano: Do you think it -- Sen. cantwell: do you think it should be privatized?
▶ 2:22:24Mr. Bisignano: I don't think people think about that.
▶ 2:22:27Sen. Cantwell: Do you think the social security agent should be raised? The president, others in the administration, has suggested that it should be raised.
▶ 2:22:41Mr. Bisignano: The job of the commissioner is to ensure that the agency operates correctly. I want to provide all the information required by the senate and by anyone else in order to make the decisions. But I don't believe I'm a decision-maker on any of these items. But I am happy to provide every piece of information required.
▶ 2:23:05Sen. Cantwell: Will you commit to opposing cuts to social security benefits?
▶ 2:23:12Mr. Bisignano: We have no objective, I have no objective, I've been told by the president to make sure that we preserve and protect social security.
▶ 2:23:22Sen. Cantwell: Do you believe you should be hiring enough staff to service people and stop the doge people from cutting off my constituents from their well-deserved check? Mr. lott nick said that he doesn't care and it's ok if they miss a payment. I don't know who his mother in law is or what kind of support they've gotten, but I know that my constituent needed the check and he wasn't dead to. The notion that he has to go through these extraordinary efforts and you guys are encouraging it, I want to know when it's going to stop.
▶ 2:23:53Sen. Cantwell: Are they going to stop doing that and fund, as my republican colleague said, the services of social security so that these four seniors can get their checks? Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 2:24:05Chair Crapo: Thank you. Senator warren?
▶ 2:24:11Senator Warren: 90 years ago congress passed the social security act. It was simple. Now, copresidents trump and must want to renege. Doge has taken a sledgehammer to the social security administration.
▶ 2:24:37Senator Warren: Pulling the plug on phone services and fields -- field offices last commissioner of social security said they were openly working with elon musk and threatened to shut down the entire agency. This isn't about efficiency. He said the quiet part about his plans out loud. Mosk said that we should eliminate social security.
▶ 2:25:03Senator Warren: The richest man in the world said social security 473 million americans should be destroyed. Mr. bisignano you have been nominated to be in charge of social security. Seniors have a right to know if you are going to protect their benefits. Let's start simple. Say a 66-year-old man qualifies for sick -- social security. Mr.
▶ 2:25:25Senator Warren: Bisignano, could the social security administration or elon musk or donald trump decide to cut benefits by $5,000 for no reason without a law passed by congress?
▶ 2:25:43Mr. Bisignano: Is that a question? I don't see that happening.
▶ 2:25:46Sen. Cantwell: I didn't ask if you see it happening. I asked if could they buy law cut the benefits without coming to congress.
▶ 2:25:53Mr. Bisignano: No.
▶ 2:25:54Sen. Cantwell: All right. Let's dig deeper. He has to go online, can go in person, can't drive. Trouble with the website. He waits until his niece can get a day off to take in. Doge closed the local office. They have to drive two hours to get the next closest office.
▶ 2:26:23Sen. Cantwell: When they get there, there are only two people staffing a 50 person line. 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 three months to straighten this out. By law he will never get these social benefits checks back. Mr. bisignano, is that a benefit cut?
▶ 2:26:52Mr. Bisignano: Well, first of all, senator, --
▶ 2:27:00Sen. Cantwell: It's an easy question. Yes or no?
▶ 2:27:03Mr. Bisignano: I have no intent to have anything like that happen.
▶ 2:27:07Sen. Cantwell: I understand that. Is it a benefit cut?
▶ 2:27:12Mr. Bisignano: I'm not sure what to call it. Sounds like a horrible situation.
▶ 2:27:17Sen. Cantwell: Is the person getting the $5,000 that they were legally entitled to?
▶ 2:27:23Mr. Bisignano: That was your scenario.
▶ 2:27:26Sen. Cantwell: Are they getting the $5,000 they were legally entitled to?
▶ 2:27:30Mr. Bisignano: I don't know.
▶ 2:27:35Senator Warren: You don't know? Let's be clear. You keep $5,000 by announcing the policy that's illegal. There are backdoor ways to accomplish the same thing. Doge is considering slashes of up to 60%. Longer lines, more errors.
▶ 2:27:58Senator Warren: For everyone who gives up or dies before they get their benefits sorted out, those delays and errors also turn into benefit cuts. Elon musk is the richest man in the world. He doesn't need social security. He would be glad to get rid of it. Only congress can cut social security benefits. Elon musk is trying a backdoor way. Mr.
▶ 2:28:22Senator Warren: Bisignano, if confirmed in the scott -- job, will you commit to reversing these cuts so that seniors get the money the law says they are entitled to?
▶ 2:28:37Mr. Bisignano: I commit to being in charge of the agency and I will look at every item I want you to look at. -- you want me to look at.
▶ 2:28:47Sen. Warren: You just answered the previous questions by saying he would follow the law. The law is to deliver the benefits that people are legally entitled to. If you don't have the staff, don't answer the phones, don't fix the mistakes, people don't get what they are legally entitled to.
▶ 2:29:10Sen. Warren: Are you willing to commit right now that you will put enough people back to work to do the job of delivering the benefits that americans earned? Yes or no?
▶ 2:29:22Mr. Bisignano: I commit to enough staffing to get the job done.
▶ 2:29:26Sen. Warren: Delivering the benefits people are entitled to? I will hold you to that.
▶ 2:29:30Mr. Bisignano: I appreciate that.
▶ 2:29:39Chair Crapo: Senator young?
▶ 2:29:46Senator Young: Congratulations on your confirmation. My mom, a social security recipient, told me I should be at the hearing in kick the tires, make sure you are qualified for the job. The social security administration needs skilled leadership, an effective administrator, and people who will level congress about the finances of the program and all the rest.
▶ 2:30:16Senator Young: So, it appears based on your strong background that you possess the requisite skills to carry out this mission. I can tell you, as someone who has represented the state of indiana for a number of years, lots of my constituents contact our offices about the challenges they are facing with the administration.
▶ 2:30:40Senator Young: Specifically, they've reported long hold times on the phone, being turned away from walk-in services, difficulty scheduling appointments with local social security field offices. If confirmed, do you commit to working with my office to make sure that my constituents, like my mother, that their cases and concerns are addressed in a speedy and thorough manner?
▶ 2:31:03Mr. Bisignano: Yes, sir.
▶ 2:31:05Sen. Young: In addition to individual cases brought to you by my and other congressional offices, do you commit to working to ensure the social security administration provides robust customer service to all americans?
▶ 2:31:20Mr. Bisignano: Yes, sir.
▶ 2:31:22Sen. Young: Along with long wait times and other lapses in customer service, my constituents report a high volume of errors being made by heat. They are particularly frequent when processing disability payments. These errors can take months to resolve and correct, creating stress and uncertainty for beneficiaries. I don't know why there are so many errors. Do you commit to finding out?
▶ 2:31:51Mr. Bisignano: Yeah. I said that. A 1% error rate per the inspector general report. I believe it's probably five digits. Five digits to the right, decimal, starting with the decimal point, I think we will do all of that workflow analysis, the process engineering, and everything required to get to why we had them and had to eliminate them.
▶ 2:32:18Sen. Young: Sounds workmanlike. That's what I would want. You have an extensive background in the payment service industry, including overseeing large and complex payment systems. How, exactly, would you apply this previous experience to improve the payment processing systems of the administration?
▶ 2:32:43Mr. Bisignano: One thing is about the error rate. We have to understand it. In there we will find a lot of opportunity to improve. I think that when we look at what we do every day and how we do it, I also say this idea of the phone rings, it takes us on average 20 plus minutes to answer it, only answer half the calls. We understand why all the phone calls come. We have to figure out how to serve the american public a lot better.
▶ 2:33:12Mr. Bisignano: To me, the job is to analyze everything we do. I know that there are a lot of stats out there. I look at the data it's produced. I see a land of opportunity.
▶ 2:33:28Sen. Young: There's a lot of conversation in our country and within congress about artificial intelligence and the promise it might bring to large organizations. Efficiencies, reduction of errors, all the rest. In the context of improvements at the social security administration, I'm impressed by the potential that ai might have to enhance government service.
▶ 2:33:56Sen. Young: As a former tech executive, do you have thoughts about how ai might be integrated into your service delivery and improve operations for the american people?
▶ 2:34:12Mr. Bisignano: People are originally concerned that it's a vulnerable population and we have to be available. That's why I like to say that we are going to meet people where they are going to be met. If they want to be met on the phone, we will answer the phone. If they are coming into the field office, will be available. Obviously, on the web. But we are also going to improve the jobs that people within the agency -- right?
▶ 2:34:38Mr. Bisignano: We can do a lot of what they do through ai and to be able to answers faster. I think that ai doesn't have to only be client facing. It needs to be helping out people in the organization, helping them do their jobs better. I think it will help us understand what the right staffing level is. I know I talk a lot about the staffing level is, but we don't really know what the right level is. I think it will help us across the board.
▶ 2:35:04Mr. Bisignano: You know, I like to say -- I've said it before, ai is just technology. We were using ai before it was called ai.
▶ 2:35:14Sen. Young: Yes, sir. Thank you. Mr. chairman?
▶ 2:35:23Senator: Thank you for letting me defer. I'm glad it was to hear those questions about senator young's mom, those are the questions that everybody in colorado has. Mr. bisignano, thank you for being here and for your willingness to serve.
▶ 2:35:40Senator: I know you understand, I hope, and this is your testimony, how important it is that amerins receive their social security benefits on time and that if a problem arises, they are able to resolve it quickly and easily, which they haven't been able to do for a long time. You have emphasized the need to "meet beneficiaries in the three places they want to be, on the phone, online, and in person.
▶ 2:36:08Senator: Last week the social security administration set americans wouldn't be able to access a number of service options over the phone and instead they will either need to use online verification processes or call to make an in person appointment. The agency itself estimates that this will add 75,000 to 80,000 in person visitors per week at field offices. As my colleagues have already said, wait times for appointments can already take a month.
▶ 2:36:38Senator: That in person appointment is only going to get harder to make if the agency cuts 7000 employees, giving us the lowest headcount in decades. I'm worried that that's not going to meet the american people where they are. I realize you haven't been over there making these decisions. I know you have spent a lot of time in the private sector. I know that there is no well-functioning corporation that would have that kind of weight that we are talking about.
▶ 2:37:10Senator: So, I think when it comes to social security, really, the american people are the ultimate shareholders. Not, not the members of the senate and not you. It's the american people. And senator young's mother. They matter. I want to ask you if you will commit to hearing from my constituents in colorado and people across the country before making cuts to staff or before restricting access to customer service.
▶ 2:37:41Senator: I guess the point I'm making is don't make assumptions about it, but let's engage your customers, our customers, our constituents, the true shareholders in a discussion about how best to serve them. What are your thoughts about that?
▶ 2:37:54Mr. Bisignano: First of all, thank you, senator. Thank you for taking the time in your office with me previously. I was highly appreciative.
▶ 2:38:07Sen. Young: -- senator: I hope my mother is watching. [laughter]
▶ 2:38:12Mr. Bisignano: I thought, as I watched what I consider a fair amount of press releases and announcements that have gone out , because that's kind of how I learn what's going on. I get up in the morning and I look at social security news.
▶ 2:38:35Mr. Bisignano: I thought to myself -- and I was fortunate enough in the last week to meet with the staff of senator wyden, senator crapo, and have sessions with all of the committee stabs. We should have some form of group that before we make a statement of what we are doing, we should go have a conversation about it.
▶ 2:39:03Mr. Bisignano: Much like we do all the time on anything you do. You are going to affect your constituents. You should get some buy-in in the process. Now, we are never going to get 100% agreement on many things. But people also understanding the reason why. This is why we are doing that, you know?
▶ 2:39:35Mr. Bisignano: Serving tens of thousands of bank branches in communities all over, rural communities. What we have to do with the technology and the innovation there is different than what we may have to do in large cities. You have to take in the full population and then get through it. It doesn't mean you aren't going to do it, but it's about us thinking through a better way for change and understanding what the constituents have to go through.
▶ 2:40:10Senator: I appreciate that. You are new to government, not necessarily a bad thing, but I will say that one way or another , we will hear from our constituents if offices are closed and they can't be served. You would be a lot better listening on the front and then taking the incoming on the backend from republicans and democrats appear, and those concerned constituents when it comes to social security. Thank you.
▶ 2:40:35Chair Crapo: Thank you. Senator smith?
▶ 2:40:39Senator Smith: Thank you, Mr. chair. Thank you, Mr. bisignano, for being here today. Rest easy, I don't have questions for you. I can see the handwriting on the wall. I have heard your responses to the questions so far. I would like to take my time to make a couple of observations about where we are.
▶ 2:40:59Senator Smith: I have no doubt that you approach this job with the faith that your private sector experience can help make the social security administration work better.
▶ 2:41:12Senator Smith: I have no doubt, it has become clear to me that since the elon musk doge took over the social security administration last month, this administration is intent on dismantling it and cutting millions of benefits, including the more than one million minnesotans who rely on it. I haven't heard anything today that has changed my assessment of that and I honestly don't think there's anything you could say, Mr. bisignano, that would change that either.
▶ 2:41:41Senator Smith: On cnbc you said that you are a -- you are fundamentally a doge person and I take you at your word. I see here that the move fast and break things game plan is in fact breaking social security. Musk recently called it the biggest ponzi scheme of all time and described entitlement spending is the big one to eliminate.
▶ 2:42:07Senator Smith: Howard let nick said that if social security checks didn't go out, seniors like his 94-year-old mother-in-law would just assume their check would come the next month and it would be fine. Obviously, secretary let nick is not in touch with the reality of the 22 million americans, including the 60 million seniors living in poverty, missing a check means missing dinner.
▶ 2:42:31Senator Smith: Last week the acting social security commissioner leland dudek threatened to shut down the agency in a fit after a federal judge informed him that doge is not allowed to root around in the private data people. It's a travesty. We can see what's going on. Minnesotans can see it as well. It's a wholesale effort to dismantle social security from the inside out.
▶ 2:42:53Senator Smith: It's not about rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse, what's happening in the social security administration right now, it's about undermining social security. Trump understands that americans love social security. He has claimed that his administration will touch it. That is not what's happening and americans can see it. They are crippling the social security administration, making it nearly impossible for people to get their benefits.
▶ 2:43:19Senator Smith: You know, trump and musk, trump and his administration with the elon musk are simultaneously trying to fire the people who make the social security system worked. They are closing field offices and then requiring seniors and others to visit the offices to prove that the money they need is theirs, that they earned it. I know what it means for minnesota. I hear it from my constituents loud and clear, when I was home last week and in my office today.
▶ 2:43:49Senator Smith: Last week the social security administration announced they would drastically reduce phone service and forced five benefits in person. Yet a leaked internal memo acknowledged that this paused foot traffic -- because foot traffic to rise sharply and instead of expanding capacity, they are shuttering offices. You can call it rank incompetence or call it that don't know don't care game plan that doge is taken across the board, but to me it obviously looks like sabotage.
▶ 2:44:18Senator Smith: I know republicans are saying they want to save social security, but this is a funny way to go about it. If you want social security workers to feel that they are winning again, I can tell you that right now the public servants at ssa feel like they are losing and that the people they serve are losing, to. Thank you, Mr. chair. I yelled back.
▶ 2:44:39Chair Crapo: Thank you. Senator lujan?
▶ 2:44:43Senator Lujan: Thank you. Thank you to Mr. bisignano for being with us today. To start, Mr. chairman, I appreciate that many of my colleagues on the committee, they hit on some of the same themes, the same notes I'm going to touch on today as well. Mr.
▶ 2:45:00Senator Lujan: Bisignano, yes or no, do you believe that every american who has earned social security benefits deserves equal access to those benefits, regardless of their zip code?
▶ 2:45:17Mr. Bisignano: Yes.
▶ 2:45:19Sen. Lujan: Since his appointment, acting commissioner dudek has made several changes to service delivery at the social security administration. One of the changes is a new requirement that all individuals applying for benefits or requesting a direct change through the national 800-number visit in person a field office to verify their identity. As you may know, new mexico is a largely rural state. We are not the only one.
▶ 2:45:51Sen. Lujan: In some areas, requiring folks to visit the office in person can mean driving several hours in one direction. Making benefits harder to access. If confirmed, will you commit to completing an analysis of how this policy change will impact social security recipients in rural and frontier counties who will now have to drive and travel to access the services they have earned?
▶ 2:46:19Mr. Bisignano: If confirmed, I will analyze exactly that.
▶ 2:46:24Sen. Lujan: Mr. bisignano, will you commit to not closing any field offices in new mexico?
▶ 2:46:30Mr. Bisignano: I have no idea if I can make that commitment. I don't really know the issue in new mexico. But I'm happy to look at it and come back to you.
▶ 2:46:40Sen. Lujan: Will you commit to not closing any field offices in rural frontier america?
▶ 2:46:48Mr. Bisignano: It's hard to commit to not doing things without having analyze that. I commit to you or anybody that before an office is closed, they will be notified of the analytics and be a partner in the decision.
▶ 2:47:04Sen. Lujan: Mr. bisignano, do you think that social security beneficiaries would prefer to have their benefit claims handled by an american worker or an ai chatbot?
▶ 2:47:16Mr. Bisignano: Ask me the question again.
▶ 2:47:19Sen. Lujan: Do you think that social security beneficiaries in america would rather have their calls answered by an american person or by an ai artificial intelligence chatbot?
▶ 2:47:31Mr. Bisignano: I think it's a choice of the beneficiary. I can't determine that for every beneficiary. I think the option to do all of it.
▶ 2:47:46Sen. Lujan: When I call someone based on a ticket I got that I can't get my hands on, a wrong charge on the credit card, I keep pressing that zero button until I get a person.
▶ 2:47:58Mr. Bisignano: You are exercising your choice.
▶ 2:48:01Sen. Lujan: It's nice to speak to someone who can answer the question instead of wasting your time. A chatbot who keeps asking you your name, repeat yourself, repeat yourself, you get the point.
▶ 2:48:15Mr. Bisignano: That's not a good chatbot.
▶ 2:48:17Sen. Lujan: None of them are. None of the ai chatbot's are good, I will say that. The social security administration stores a range of sensitive, personal information, including medical information, bank account numbers. According to the acting commissioner, he has authorized several members of doge to access those systems to view the sensitive personal information stored at the agency.
▶ 2:48:48Sen. Lujan: In our meeting, you confirmed you had been in contact with individuals affiliated with doge . During the contact, has anyone affiliated with doge shared with you the justification for accessing this sensitive personal information of americans outside of agency protocol?
▶ 2:49:05Mr. Bisignano: I haven't talked to anybody and doge about anything around anything.
▶ 2:49:12Sen. Lujan: As an american citizen assigned a social security number at birth, do you feel comfortable with doge having access to your sensitive personal information?
▶ 2:49:23Mr. Bisignano: I would like to answer the question more broadly . I spent my whole career protecting pii. Whether it was at citigroup, j.p. Morgan, [indiscernible] fiserv. I don't think it's a doge question, it's an everybody question. Pii is pii. It needs to be protected.
▶ 2:49:50Sen. Lujan: I appreciate that. That's the answer you gave me in the office, it needs to be protected. I'm going to ask one more time, because it sounds like we are in agreement here. As an american citizen assigned a social security number at birth, do you feel comfortable with doge having access to your sensitive personal information?
▶ 2:50:13Mr. Bisignano: I'm not having it -- comfortable to having exposed anybody. You are limiting the item to doge and I'm trying to tell you that the job is to protect all pii.
▶ 2:50:27Sen. Lujan: Do you feel comfortable with anyone having access your sensitive personal information?
▶ 2:50:32Mr. Bisignano: No.
▶ 2:50:34Sen. Lujan: That's what we are trying to illustrate here. To get to the bottom of this nonsense of what we see happening with people's information just being attacked and who knows where it's going. There was an article this weekend about -- what's the name of that company where you send them your dna? Something 21?
▶ 2:50:55Sen. Lujan: I saw article after article saying -- suggesting to people around the country that they should go in there and try to clean up the information because they don't know who is going to buy it. What's going to happen with this? Anyway, hilda.
▶ 2:51:08Chair Crapo: Senator barrasso? Congratulations on your nomination. You are the right person for the job. I appreciate the chances we had to meet. In wyoming, clearly, social security is critical. It's an aging population. I traveled the state.
▶ 2:51:27Chair Crapo: I hear from individuals who depend upon the bias of the program and its ability to continue and make sure that the people across the country can continue to receive these benefits that they have earned and paid into. It's critical that the program remains strong. Keep our promises to current beneficiaries and generations. I think to do that there are a number of issues that need to be addressed. Social security needs to focus on improving customer service. Reduce wait times and backlogs.
▶ 2:52:01Chair Crapo: Modernize and streamline technology to prevent improper payments, which are a part of this as well. Are you committed to doing everything you can to strengthen the social security program into helping our seniors?
▶ 2:52:13Mr. Bisignano: I'm 100% committed. I appreciate the question. I will work on every aspect of what we talked about. It's the service work that needs a high degree of quality and accuracy.
▶ 2:52:28Sen. Barrasso: Recently we talked about the problems being reported by the press that are plain wrong. As a previous header from new mexico said, he reads articles that say this. He may be, but that doesn't mean it's correct. Case in point, we have a social security office in rock springs, wyoming, sweetwater county, people depend upon it. I understand there is a hearing room hardly ever used. They closed the hearing room, but not the field office.
▶ 2:52:59Sen. Barrasso: But what gets reported in the news is that the whole thing will be closed. There's no truth to that whatsoever, as my office looked into it. It's incumbent on people to if they cannot get a direct answer, go to one of your representatives and have them check into it. I'm sure you've seen case after case of similar misrepresentation in the press.
▶ 2:53:20Mr. Bisignano: Yes.
▶ 2:53:22Sen. Barrasso: I want to talk about legislation to help terminally ill individuals. Individuals given less than six months to live, they are currently forced to wait more than five months to receive their social security disability insurance benefits. Over the last several congresses, I've been working across the aisle on a bipartisan basis on legislation to help these people with terminal illnesses receive timely access to benefits.
▶ 2:53:51Sen. Barrasso: People facing terminal illnesses shouldn't be worrying about whether they are going to receive the benefits they need, especially benefits they need, especially with fits they need, especially with sots they need, especially with so s they need, especially with so little need, especially with so little time, to live and by law they have to wait six months. That's why I have cosponsored legislation called the expedited disability insurance payment for terminally ill individuals. Ending the five month disability insurance waiting period for those diagnosed with a terminal illness that have less than six months to live.
▶ 2:54:19Sen. Barrasso: Ensuring that people with these disabilities -- with -- receive benefits in a timely manner. Last year, 30,000 people died waiting for their disability decisions from the social security administration. The last thing that people need to deal with when facing these end-of-life decisions should be concerned about trying to work their way through the red tape of the social security administration.
▶ 2:54:47Sen. Barrasso: Americans and loved ones facing significant hardships should get help when they need it the most. Do you have views on the need to streamline and expedite these benefits for the terminally ill?
▶ 2:54:57Mr. Bisignano: In a case like that, many of these are really process engineering on how to change the way we do it. You know? Obviously, that should hit high priority because of the sensitivity of the issue. I'm happy to go look at it if I'm fortunate enough to be confirmed, sir.
▶ 2:55:17Sen. Barrasso: Would you commit to working with me in my office including providing technical assistance as needed on making sure we can get through this red tape?
▶ 2:55:26Mr. Bisignano: Yes, sir.
▶ 2:55:29Sen. Barrasso: My colleague from new mexico was just asking about the average wait times on the national 800 numbers, doubling from 20 minutes in 2019 to over 40 minutes and 2024. What are your plans for addressing performance management and improving customer service?
▶ 2:55:50Mr. Bisignano: I think call centers are one of the easiest areas to manage and monitor and generate individual performance reports and a performance reports. I also think that we need to make sure we have the right technology for the agent to answer the phones. Right? Obviously, we've got to look at the length and the duration of the call. What do they have to do to answer the call?
▶ 2:56:19Mr. Bisignano: What do they have to do to collect the information? I think that ai, while still talking to humans, can help the car -- call center agent get to the problem much quicker.
▶ 2:56:31Sen. Barrasso: Final question, I know my time has expired, what's the biggest obstacle we might face in trying to upgrade these systems?
▶ 2:56:40Mr. Bisignano: It's all about will. It's all about will. If you want to get it done.
▶ 2:56:47Sen. Barrasso: Thank you.
▶ 2:56:49Chair Crapo: Senator welch?
▶ 2:56:52Senator Welch: Thank you. I will tell the senator from wyoming that I commit to working with you on getting those benefits returned to those people. Thank you. We had a very good meeting and I appreciated it. One of the things you have experience is -- in is cutting costs and making things more efficient. Here's my question, when you did that, you would examine the function in the program?
▶ 2:57:24Senator Welch: You would assess where changes could be made that might include changes that reduced personnel, but it also might be a function where you had inadequate personnel? The point would be to enhance the delivery of the purpose of that mission, is that right?
▶ 2:57:47Mr. Bisignano: Yes.
▶ 2:57:49Sen. Welch: That's a problem with doge, it's not about efficiency. No one here doesn't want our committee to run more efficiently or our congress to run more efficiently. My point, it's a point you have made, Mr. chairman, but what's happening with doge, in the news is in on this, it's not debatable. They are shooting first and aiming later.
▶ 2:58:20Sen. Welch: It's had incredibly damaging effects on what's going on. Just this morning, all of us are concerned about the service being provided to the citizens we all represent. There was an article in the post talking about how the services totally deteriorated. The wait times are longer than ever. That's been in "the wall street journal" as well.
▶ 2:58:49Sen. Welch: With doge doing this, isn't that upside down? Just as a matter of process? Not asking you to comment on the great elon musk. What's the question? -- Mr. bisignano: what's the question?
▶ 2:59:11Sen. Welch: Doesn't it make sense in an agency whose goal is to have the place to be more efficient to study the function first before they start firing people?
▶ 2:59:20Mr. Bisignano: Yeah. I think. First of all, I think the agency needs, is a multidisciplined.
▶ 2:59:31Sen. Welch: That's what I'm asking. Let's be direct come here. Doge has sent out termination letters to people. Employees who have no idea who the people are they are firing. They just know they are on a list and they need a body count in order to be able to claim they are serving their function. But no one took a look at the function before they started firing people.
▶ 3:00:01Sen. Welch: Have you ever done that in all of the time of your successful career? Has that been the hallmark of making organizations run more efficiently? Would you do it that way?
▶ 3:00:11Mr. Bisignano: No.
▶ 3:00:13Sen. Welch: That's the right answer. Nobody would.
▶ 3:00:19Mr. Bisignano: Just trying to be honest.
▶ 3:00:22Sen. Welch: No one would do it that way. Here's the dilemma that you and every other nominee is in. Musk is running roughshod. He could care less about the function. He wants a body count. From our perspective, he has way more control over every agency than the head of the agency.
▶ 3:00:46Sen. Welch: I much prefer to have someone with your experience who looks carefully at what the function is and then makes determinations about how to improve the delivery of the function. So, you are going to be under the thumb of doge, that's the aspect of this that worries me.
▶ 3:01:06Mr. Bisignano: I plan on running the agency, reporting to the president, and I think the president has made it clear that doge is there for input, but that the agency heads make their own decisions.
▶ 3:01:19Sen. Welch: You know what, keep musk the hell out of social security, please. One vermonter con -- contacted b about the death benefits. We talked about this in my office.
▶ 3:01:34Mr. Bisignano: We did. I appreciated that time.
▶ 3:01:37Sen. Welch: Death penalty in social security, 250 five dollars. Doesn't go as far today as it did before. I want to work to have that come up to 2000 25. Do you support doing that in a way that is fiscally responsible?
▶ 3:01:57Mr. Bisignano: As I said, I'm happy to work on it with you.
▶ 3:02:00Sen. Welch: Thank you.
▶ 3:02:04Chair Crapo: Senator warnock?
▶ 3:02:08Senator Warnock: Thank you. Mr. bisignano, welcome to you and your family present today. Congratulations on the nomination. Thank you for meeting with me in your office. -- in my office. I want to follow up on some of the issues we discussed.
▶ 3:02:27Senator Warnock: When we met, I shared with you a strong view that retirees in georgia who rely on social security security deserve reliable, timely delivery of their full benefits with world-class customer service. There's a long record of delivering that in the private sphere.
▶ 3:02:50Senator Warnock: That's why so many georgians are alarmed to hear about what's happening over the last month with several news outlets reporting that elon musk and is doge team announced on their own website plans to permanently close five social security customer service offices throughout georgia.
▶ 3:03:11Senator Warnock: These closures in brunswick, columbus, gainesville, thomasville, and by delia would give george of the highest number of planned social security office closures of any state. Those five cities, representing five counties, with over 136,000 people who rely on social security benefits.
▶ 3:03:34Senator Warnock: Since I raised the alarm, since I made some noise about this, doge is something out on x denying the closures they posted on their own website. They posted those closures on their website. Now no one seems to know what's true or whether or not these closures will affect the access of georgians to their benefits or other services.
▶ 3:04:03Senator Warnock: Sir, I know you're not currently at the social security administration. Perhaps you can't speak to the play ends hatched by elon musk or doge, but if you are confirmed to lead the agency, americans deserve to know who will actually be in charge of their benefits.
▶ 3:04:25Senator Warnock: I think we heard an answer from you a moment ago from my colleague, but I'm going to ask you again for the record, where will the buck stop on these decisions? Specifically with respect to office closures? As someone who represents the state where they announced five closures and I made noise about it, it's on their website and then they withdrew it acting like I made it up. They put it on their website. I need to know, when it comes to office closures, who is going to be making that decision?
▶ 3:04:56Senator Warnock: You or elon musk?
▶ 3:04:56Mr. Bisignano: Me.
▶ 3:04:57Sen. Warnock: That's a good answer. I hope to be up to follow up with you on that.
▶ 3:05:02Mr. Bisignano: I'm 100% available.
▶ 3:05:05Sen. Warnock: What's that?
▶ 3:05:07Mr. Bisignano: I'm 100% available.
▶ 3:05:10Sen. Warnock: I appreciate that. So do the seniors in my state. Those of the folks I'm concerned about.
▶ 3:05:18Mr. Bisignano: That makes two of us.
▶ 3:05:21Sen. Warnock: Will you commit to keeping all state offices open?
▶ 3:05:29Mr. Bisignano: I've been asked to this question more than one time today. What I will commit to is that there will be no decision made without me knowing about it. I have no intent to close field offices. I have studied nothing on the topic. It's hard to commit to something.
▶ 3:05:49Sen. Warnock: Study is a good thing. So far we have seen no study, no real knowledge about what's going on, just an effort to close offices in order to be able to announce you are addressing waste, fraud, and abuse. We all know it's true, regardless of democrat or republican. They are going to be going back to rehire some of the people they fired. As a businessman, I know you wouldn't operate in this way.
▶ 3:06:18Sen. Warnock: The reason I'm asking about these field offices and these announced changes, it could lead to an increase in 7 million for the field offices per year across the country an estimated 200,000 additional visits in georgia alone.
▶ 3:06:40Sen. Warnock: If confirmed, will you commit to increasing staffing at georgia field offices to account for this massive expected increase in appointments to help ensure the people of georgia can easily and efficiently make appointments question mark to be clear about what I'm asking, if you call on the phone and you got to go online or go to the office and have an in person appointment, you are going to have a backlog.
▶ 3:07:11Sen. Warnock: How is it that I can assure the seniors in my church that their lines are not going to get longer and longer? And I disagree with the commerce secretary who said that if his mother-in-law missed a check, she wouldn't worry about it. I guess you wouldn't, her son-in-law is a billionaire. That's not the story of the seniors in my church. Would you make sure that they have access to find out what's going on with the benefits they earned?
▶ 3:07:37Mr. Bisignano: Senator, first of all, thank you very much. I've spent my career overseeing financial institutions. Today I served 3500 financial institutions in america. That means we have community banks, rural banks, and I know what it means to have to serve neighborhoods. And also serve rural communities .
▶ 3:08:06Mr. Bisignano: You know, my commitment is that it will be a fact based rule-based organization that we run. We will make sure we have the staffing to get the best level of service for our constituents. I am giving you a longer answer, but we will have the talent that we need to get the job done at a service level than today's.
▶ 3:08:35Sen. Warnock: I appreciate the answer. I'm trying to get our residents the benefits they have earned. They have paid into the system. Thank you so much.
▶ 3:08:44Chair Crapo: Appreciate it.
▶ 3:08:47Sen. Warnock: Senator -- Mr.
▶ 3:08:49Bisignano: Appreciate it.
▶ 3:08:51Chair Crapo: Senator blackburn? Congratulations to you. We are delighted to have you before us and getting confirmed in the social security administration so that you can begin to address the problems that exist.
▶ 3:09:08Chair Crapo: As my colleagues across the aisle have talked about this morning, I have found that it's so interesting that they have wanted to speak in favor of protecting the status quo. We know that service and wait times and backlogs have existed. We have all mentioned it. You know what is so interesting? They accepted that during the biden administration. They refused to call it out.
▶ 3:09:41Chair Crapo: Now they want to blame the problem caused by the lack of oversight on someone who is not even there and confirmed at this point. We look forward to getting you there.
▶ 3:10:02Chair Crapo: We do look forward to having someone who is going to bring their expertise to make certain that the accountability, the transparency that is necessary for a payment system is going to be put in place. I have found it to be so interesting, some of their questions around this.
▶ 3:10:31Chair Crapo: Because I have -- what I have found is that the union employees, the labor unions, have sought to protect the people that work at social security, but their emphasis has not been on retirees and recipients. In order to overhaul an agency, they are going to have to implement new systems, protocols, and approaches.
▶ 3:10:59Chair Crapo: So, when you are confirmed, I would hope that your emphasis will be on protecting those retirees, their payments, and not protecting these labor unions. If you will go through this process of rightsizing, downsizing, and eliminating some of the union employees who have been expressionist in the process?
▶ 3:11:29Mr. Bisignano: I plan on assessing everything we have -- I plan on assessing everything we have to help those who paid into the system with their hard earned money.
▶ 3:11:40Sen. Blackburn: You mentioned using ai and several of your responses. Quantum network ai, basically what I have discerned from what you have said you could more or less build a new infrastructure. Is that accurate?
▶ 3:11:59Mr. Bisignano: To get there, you take what you have and peel away parts, build the middle layer, and when I took over it was a lumbering legacy company that was supposed to be out of business.
▶ 3:12:29Mr. Bisignano: We had the same situation that we were able to build over, maintaining small business software technology. That was able to change the paradigm. I feel that we could do the same thing with social security. We have a strategic advantage with ai. We can make all of the work simpler, easier within the department. I think we can drive the accuracy level higher.
▶ 3:12:58Sen. Blackburn: Sen. wyden: speaking of your approach to fraud and improper payments by using technology to trace and chase?
▶ 3:13:07Mr. Bisignano: Yeah, I mean, you know, today I helped banks figure out a data business. We can protect all of the pii in the world. We don't need to expose any pii? We need to use better analytic tools.
▶ 3:13:33Mr. Bisignano: Obviously, one of the things I want to look at is the anti-fraud group, understanding how well we are doing there and how well they are told to do their job.
▶ 3:13:48Sen. Blackburn: Our goal is to make sure that our social security recipients are going to receive what they are entitled to in a timely manner. We know that putting out the waste and the fraud and the improper payments will help to assure that they get every single penny they are entitled to. Thank you so much, we look forward to confirming you. Thank you, Mr..
▶ 3:14:20Sen. Blackburn: Senator tillis?
▶ 3:14:21Senator Tillis: I also appreciate you taking the time with my staff. I apologize for not being able to meet with you. I already decided I was going to support your confirmation. You have exactly the right sort of skills. Whether it's your business acumen within a fiscal crisis, whether it's the closure project.
▶ 3:14:51Senator Tillis: You've got a pretty wide array of experience Mr. o'malley, I supported his confirmation. There are things that as you get in there give me an indication of a current body of work. Some of it makes sense.
▶ 3:15:14Senator Tillis: They are key performance indicators not moving in the right to give you an idea of what that would be in the agency.
▶ 3:15:24Mr. Bisignano: I want to understand how those field offices operate.
▶ 3:15:29Sen. Blackburn: What you are going to find out is that after you do the analytics, every member of congress except for me will like the analytics except to the extent that it affects one of the offices in the district or state. You have my commitment if you present analytics, vest and high-end use of american taxpayer dollars is to support those on social security somewhere else, then I will support it. Do not pull punches.
▶ 3:15:59Sen. Blackburn: Go after -- do not pull any punches. Continue.
▶ 3:16:05Mr. Bisignano: The phone rings a lot but we do not answer it a lot but it is about staffing, what we need to do the job, what is the technology we need to do the job. Staffing levels, I'm not saying we need to add people to read we may not know how to shift manage.
▶ 3:16:24Sen. Blackburn: Or have the right people.
▶ 3:16:26Mr. Bisignano: Instead of saying where we are meeting beneficiaries because job one is taking care of all those that rely on us.
▶ 3:16:38Sen. Blackburn: Are you going to be the executive sponsor for the transformation of social security?
▶ 3:16:43Mr. Bisignano: 100%.
▶ 3:16:45Sen. Blackburn: Do you see anyone else being more than just advisers and strategists?
▶ 3:16:49Mr. Bisignano: No.
▶ 3:16:50Sen. Blackburn: When you ever knowingly allow any pii to be used by anyone not part of a process you are running?
▶ 3:16:58Mr. Bisignano: Never in my life.
▶ 3:17:01Sen. Blackburn: Someone mentioned in an interview, I'm guessing what you're fundamentally an efficiency dripping person. -- efficiency driven person.
▶ 3:17:20Mr. Bisignano: The largest thing that causes expense in a company is bad control environments. I said it in the manner of -- I was driving efficiency before there was such a word.
▶ 3:17:41Chair Crapo: There were other people suggesting, I knew I would be last, I'm not going to go too far, but I really feel like -- there were suggestions made thateven the president, I e white house with the president two weeks ago and he made it very clear that benefits cuts her off the table, period, full
▶ 3:18:13Chair Crapo: Stop. He said the same about medicare and medicaid. So you are there to make sure people who are eligible for it, not necessarily gaming the system, there may be some of that. The vast majority like my 92-year-old mother are not part of gaming the system and would appreciate getting the check every month, although family members would chip in. That is her source of income. You are committed to making sure the checks get out every month?
▶ 3:18:43Mr. Bisignano: Yes, sir.
▶ 3:18:44Chair Crapo: And where there is fraud you rooted out.
▶ 3:18:48Mr. Bisignano: Yes, sir.
▶ 3:18:50Chair Crapo: And every key performance indicator whether it is wait times, payment processes, you're moving that in a positive direction?
▶ 3:18:59Mr. Bisignano: That is right.
▶ 3:19:00Chair Crapo: I look forward to supporting your confirmation. >> we have one more question. Senator wyden has asked if he can have one more question in the we will have very brief wrap up statements and we will be done.
▶ 3:19:19Sen. Wyden: The nominee has been talking to people at social security as far as I can tell almost every day for weeks and as far as I can tell he has made no objection to anything going on. Quite the contrary he has been getting people by his insistence wrought into the doge mentality at social security.
▶ 3:19:47Sen. Wyden: My question to our nominee today is, I look at doge and say to myself, I'm dying to know what our nominee would give the doge people a grade. What kind of grade would you give them the last couple months? I look around and see phones out of whack, office is out of whack, databases being invaded. I'm not sure I would give them a very good grade but you are a doge guy. What grade would you give them the first couple months?
▶ 3:20:15Mr. Bisignano: I'm a high quality provider of services to customers. I have my whole life. When you look at any indicator ofcontrol, increasing employee satisfaction.
▶ 3:20:36Sen. Wyden: Respectfully, that is not the question.
▶ 3:20:40Mr. Bisignano: I'm about to answer.
▶ 3:20:42Sen. Wyden: We want an appraisal of their track record the first couple months.
▶ 3:20:46Mr. Bisignano: I was trying to get to the answer, sir. I believe you need to focus on the client. In this case it is the beneficiary. At this point in time what I see is an acting commissioner that has maybe been put in a position -- as I have said, I have not
▶ 3:21:16Mr. Bisignano: Talked to him, I do not know him, but there is no substitute for experience. I have experience at this, inside and out. Motivating people, delivering for clients, that being the beneficiaries here, being rule-based, overseen by regulators, reporting to authority, the senate finance committee as opposed to the board of directors.
▶ 3:21:47Mr. Bisignano: I think we have somebody in the act enroll and you hear him in the papers every day. I don't know if this is a doge issue. I think it is a leadership issue. That is why I'm hopeful. If I am confirmed I would be in charge of the agency.
▶ 3:22:05Sen. Wyden: Let the record show I asked our nominee twice to give a grade for the doge operation. He said he is not even sure it has anything to do with them. I can tell you my constituents, I have town hall meetings, more than 1100, every county, every year. They are terrified because they cannot get through on the phone. I spent time with you yesterday.
▶ 3:22:32Sen. Wyden: I think you think that ai is a silver bullet. We need phone service. That is what people are asking for right now. I'm all into work with longer-term approaches if seniors are interested in that but right now, they are interested in phone service and somebody who can help them and you have taken a pass through the last 2.5 hours on giving us any ideas and you want us to accept that because you have had some background in business we should accept you at face value.
▶ 3:23:04Sen. Wyden: I heard from the whistleblower and they think you have not told the truth so I look forward to the answers we are going to get and until then I will keep the record open on my side for any ideas you have to do something now that will help people for your assessment of doge's performance. Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 3:23:24Chair Crapo: Thank you. We are ready to wrap it up. What you have shown today, Mr. bisignano, is that you are the person who needs to have this job. You know how to deliver, what we all want from social security. We are all looking forward to moving ahead expeditiously with your nomination. I want to repeat something the senator said.
▶ 3:23:52Chair Crapo: The attack all day has been on doge and undercutting social security, shutting it down or privatizing it or whatever it is. The bottom line is, the president of the united states has said very clearly that we are not going to cut social security benefits. He has said we are not going to cut medicare benefits.
▶ 3:24:19Chair Crapo: And we are not going to cut medicaid benefits. No matter what, folks, whether it is the media or those who want to attack the administration on to say, the reality is, it is scare tactics. We look forward to having you at the social security administration to deliver on the performance you discussed so well today. And we thank you for being willing to step into this situation and help our country.
▶ 3:24:51Chair Crapo: With that, this hearing is adjourned. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap.org]