A report by the top Republican on the Senate’s investigative panel suggests that $1 billion has been paid by the federal government in checks over the decade to dead people.
According to the report, over 250,000 dead people have already been paid funds by the government. This was revealed by Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, ranking Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee on investigations.
The payments that have been made include $18 million in stimulus funds from Social Security to dead people, $92 million for treatments prescribed by doctors in Medicare claims and $8.2 million for the supplies required medically that were prescribed for the dead patients.
In June, President Obama took measures to try to control those mistakes by issuing a memo by checking the payments against those in the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File, however, Coburn said it would be difficult to catch errors.
Mr. Coburn has blamed Congress for the rules which give benefits to dead farmers amounting to more than a billion. It is being sent to around 173,000 farmers over the last seven years. Of that money, almost one fifth went to dead farmers who have died in the seven years. He also blamed Congress for the lax behaviour of the lawyers and their failure to correct errors in payment by giving the agencies the chances and the means to do so. Congress has been able to regain 52 percent of the $18 million given in payments to 71,688 people.
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