The trouble with dead people often begins with something called the Death Master File, which is kept by the Social Security Administration. Every day new reports are added, provided by relatives, funeral homes and the state agencies that issue official death certificates.
The list contains 90 million reports.
“We get criticized for not having all these records be accurate,” said Marianna LaCanfora, the Social Security official whose division oversees this function. “And the fact is, they were never intended to be 100 percent accurate.”
In fact, glitches in the system have paid more than $700 million to the dead, according to government audits performed since 2008.
Living Americans — at least 750 new people every month — are placed on the Death master File and falsely listed as dead. And once you’re on that list, it is not easy to get off. This summer in Utah, one man visited a Social Security office to protest his “death” in person. But the clerks wanted more evidence. They gave him a piece of paper, the man’s son recalled.
They asked him to write on it, “I’m alive.”
In the Senate, Carper and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) have written a bill that would require all federal agencies to check the Death Master File before paying benefits. It would also give all agencies access to the full file, not just the partial one. And it would require new efforts to make sure the data in the file are accurate.
In the meantime, the dead continue to be paid.
Wednesday, December 18, 2013 2:01:00 PM