VA Declared Veterans Dead, Social Security Kept Paying Them?

Social Security pays millions to people VA says are dead

The Washington Times
By Stephen Dinan
September 3, 2017

It was based on a sample of 100 veterans the VA said were dead but whose names never were shared with Social Security. Of those, the audit was able to determine the status of only 30 people: 19 of them were deemed dead while 11 others were still alive, despite the VA’s records.

The Department of Veterans Affairs knew they were dead, but the Social Security Administration kept paying benefits to hundreds of people anyway, according to a new agency audit released Friday that says at least $37 million in bogus payments were made.

Photo by: George Walker IV The Department of Veterans Affairs hospital stands Wednesday, June 11, 2014, in Nashville, Tenn. The director of the Tennessee Valley Healthcare System said Wednesday that it will soon receive as much as $15 million to address an audit showing long wait times for veterans. Juan Morales told reporters that the money will help pay for additional physician-support staff and fees that may be incurred if a veteran has to be sent to an outside provider. (AP Photo/The Tennessean, George Walker IV)

Investigators compared the VA’s record to Social Security rolls and found nearly 4,000 people who were listed as dead by the VA, but were still getting checks. Some of those people listed as dead were in fact still alive, but others were deceased — and their checks never should have been paid, the Social Security inspector general said.

Among the dead veterans was one who died in August 2008 but continued to get checks until March of this year, when the inspector general got a report from the State Department showing he had died abroad, in Thailand. Social Security paid out $160,000 in bogus payments in that case.
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