After telling you about the DOGE layoffs, we have some alarming news for a San Francisco-based HIV survivor.
In addition to informing him that his disability benefits will be reduced, the Social Security Office also informed him that he now owes $201,079.10.
“I’m an almost 62-year-old man living on a fixed income in the most expensive city in the United States to live in, and they’re cutting off my income. That’s frightening!”
Paul Aguilar, a San Francisco resident and 38-year HIV/AIDS survivor, recently received a letter from the Social Security Administration office.
“Informing me that there were concerns about my benefits and that they should have actually stopped December 2013, and that I now owed them over $200,000 and I had 30 days to pay that $200,000,” Aguilar states.
The problem is that since 2005, Aguilar has been disabled due to his HIV diagnosis.
He can’t work full-time due to his physical limitations. According to the letter, he should not have been eligible for disability benefits between 2014 and 2025.
His physician and a participant in his journey is Dr. Monica Gandhi. Aguilar’s HIV awareness work was highlighted during this tour when he was named the San Francisco Pride 2023 Lifetime Achievement Grand Marshal.
Actually, when we spoke with Aguilar on Tuesday, he was returning from AIDSWatch in Washington, DC.
“All I can see and I’ve been watching his health for a while, is that every single time he should have been getting Social Security, he should have been getting Social Security like he needed that for his health,” Dr. Gandhi stated.
“Given my disability, I wouldn’t be able to do a 40-hour a week job – there’s just no way, I’m physically unable to do so,” Aguilar states.
Social Security Administration said in a statement that, “Privacy laws preclude Social Security from discussing individual cases. We can share that the agency has reached out to Mr. Aguilar directly to address his concerns.”
Aguilar, who is currently working with a lawyer and has sought out to lawmakers, says he has applied for a waiver and began the process of appealing for reconsideration.
He claims that his disability payments, including Medicare, have been reduced and attributes this to DOGE reduction.
“The fact that they cut off my medical care scares me more than anything else because if I can’t access my medical care, it means I can’t access my medications which means eventually my HIV virus disease will spiral out of control and I could be dead in a year or two,” Aguilar stated.
Source: abc7news
