SSA and VA can’t talk – costs taxpayers millions
David sends us a link to United Press International which reports that the Social Security Administration and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs can’t properly exchange the status of veterans which resulted in payments totaling more than $38 million to dead veterans;
The Inspector General for the SSA found a systematic problem in which the SSA continues to send payments to veterans after they were listed as dead by the Veterans Administration. In other cases, the VA listed people as dead who were still alive. But the crux of the problem appears to be deaths that aren’t recorded properly and not put into the SSA system to determine whether a payment should continue or stop.
“SSA reviewed selected instances and stated that VA had not included most of the individuals’ death information in monthly death data transmitted to SSA,” the IG report stated. “Based on our sample results, we estimate SSA issued about $37.7 million to 746 individuals after they died and will issue approximately $7.3 million more over the next 12 months if these discrepancies are not corrected.”
Yeah, I’m shocked that bureaucrats can’t talk to each other. It’s a simple process but the government makes it so hard, and the taxpayers, and the victims, end up footing the bill. The headline makes it sound like veterans are at fault, but, no, it’s the minor government functionaries who can’t use their computers to put the proper check in the proper box. The families are reporting the deaths, as they should.
Category: Government Incompetence
If the families are reporting the deaths, then where is the money going and who is “cashing” the checks?
Thank you Green Thumb! My question exactly. Those payments aren’t wear dating. Someone is cashing the checks or using the direct deposit accounts and their asses should hang for it.
No excuse for this sort of mess. You almost have to conclude that the bureaucrats are deliberately building ways for scams to occur.
They all want to protect their fiefdoms and preserve their jobs.
It’s not like they aren’t using the same system or anything is it?
It would be nice if they did ‘talk’ to each other and the VA would bill Medicare, but I realize that something like that is a fantasy, no matter how much sense it makes.
Hell, the VHA and VBA rarely communicate. They even state they do not have anything to do with each other.
Except at the C&P level. Then they get quiet when you point that out.
It begins with “V” and end with “A”. Anything in the middle should be moot.
Right?
It’s not like they aren’t using the same system or anything is it?
Probably not.
I can’t see why anyone would think they would be using the same system.
IT in the federal government is a dog’s breakfast. We can’t get division within the same agency to use a single system.
And no, it isn’t fiefdom building-at least not directly.
IT has so much potential to automate simple processes, but the truth is that failed systems, bad project management and active stupid procurement regulations mean that if we field a successful integration in one department we often can’t “share” it with another agency because the title that allows the money can not cross the line.
Add the cronies of the Congress to the mix and you go right past full retard to mashed potato goulash…
Then there is the fact that processes are either non-existent or not enforced so even where systems look at the same data, the humans can’t or won’t use it effectively.
This is all why those clamoring for “moar gubmint” solutions are just stupid.
We won’t even get into the obscene mess that is defending the data in such a farcetastic mess.
A perfect explanation of how these hack factories operate, and why we’re now at $20 trillion.
Our tax dollars hard at work yet again.
The VA will fix it by requiring all veterans to self report their deaths.
They would deny the request…
Our Government defined in one partial sentence.
“…will issue approximately $7.3 million more over the next 12 months if these discrepancies are not corrected.”
We know the data is wrong, but we are going to keep issuing checks incorrectly until we are told to stop.
If only this was real money…
I have been reading Thomas Sowell.
Incredible. Amazing.
The guy is a true leader, yet nobody follows him.
I just read a few things from him that I had never even consider. The guy is brilliant.
“Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.”
“It is a way to take people’s wealth from them without having to openly raise taxes. Inflation is the most universal tax of all.”
“Prices are important not because money is considered paramount but because prices are a fast and effective conveyor of information through a vast society in which fragmented knowledge must be coordinated.”
“Being willing to donate the taxpayers’ money is not the same as being willing to put your own money where your mouth is.”
“A shortage is a sign that somebody is keeping the price artificially lower than it would be if supply and demand were allowed to operate freely.”
“The Congressional Budget Office has been embarrassed repeatedly by making projections based on the assumption that tax revenues and tax rates move in the same direction.”
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