[Senate Hearing 114-419]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 114-419
EXAMINING FEDERAL IMPROPER PAYMENTS AND ERRORS IN THE DEATH MASTER FILE
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 16, 2015
__________
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
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Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin Chairman
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio CLAIRE McCASKILL, Missouri
RAND PAUL, Kentucky JON TESTER, Montana
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota
KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey
JONI ERNST, Iowa GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
BEN SASSE, Nebraska
Keith B. Ashdown, Staff Director
Patrick J. Bailey, Chief Counsel for Governmental Affairs
Gabrielle A. Batkin. Minority Staff Director
John P. Kilvington, Minority Deputy Staff Director
Peter Tyler, Minority Senior Professional Staff Member
Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
Lauren M. Corcoran, Hearing Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Johnson.............................................. 1
Senator Carper............................................... 2
Senator Lankford............................................. 24
Senator Peters............................................... 27
Senator McCaskill............................................ 29
Senator Ayotte............................................... 32
Senator Ernst................................................ 34
Prepared statements:
Senator Johnson.............................................. 43
Senator Carper............................................... 45
WITNESSES
Monday, March 16, 2015
Judy C. Rivers, Logan, Alabama................................... 4
Sean Brune, Senior Advisor to the Deputy Commissioner, Office of
the Budget, Finance, Quality and Management, U.S. Social
Security Administration........................................ 11
Hon. Patrick P. O'Carroll, Jr., Inspector General, Social
Security Administration........................................ 13
Hon. David Mader, U.S. Controller, Office of Management and
Budget......................................................... 15
Beryl H. Davis, Director, Financial Management and Assurance,
U.S. Government Accountability Office; Accompanied by Daniel
Bertoni, Director, Education, Workforce and Income Security,
U.S. Government Accountability Office.......................... 17
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Bertoni, Daniel:
Testimony.................................................... 17
Joint prepared statement..................................... 80
Brune, Sean:
Testimony.................................................... 11
Prepared statement........................................... 61
Davis, Beryl H.:
Testimony.................................................... 17
Joint prepared statement..................................... 80
Mader, Hon. David:
Testimony.................................................... 15
Prepared statement........................................... 74
O'Carroll, Hon. Patrick P.:
Testimony.................................................... 13
Prepared statement........................................... 68
Rivers, Judy C.:
Testimony.................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 47
APPENDIX
Chart submitted by Senator Johnson............................... 100
Information submitted by Mr. Brune............................... 101
Information submitted by Mr. Brune............................... 102
Statement submitted by the National Association for Public Health
Statistics and Information Systems............................. 103
EXAMINING FEDERAL IMPROPER PAYMENTS AND ERRORS IN THE DEATH MASTER FILE
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MONDAY, MARCH 16, 2015
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 4:03 p.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Ron Johnson,
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Johnson, Lankford, Ayotte, Ernst, Carper,
McCaskill, and Peters.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN JOHNSON
Chairman Johnson. This hearing will come to order.
First of all, I want to welcome all of our witnesses here.
I appreciate your thoughtful testimony. The hearing's title is
``Examining Federal Improper Payments and Errors in the Death
Master File.'' And, in particular, we have a very interesting
witness who has certainly been the victim of inaccuracies in
our Death Master File (DMF): Ms. Judy Rivers from Logan,
Alabama. And, Ms. Rivers, I have to say that when I read your
testimony--and I would really recommend everybody reading the
full testimony. It is quite the story. But I was struck by very
early on you made the statement, ``It has often been said that
Washington, D.C., is the capital of unintended consequences.''
And we are going to be seeing that here today.
But what I would like to say is that we are going to start
off with Ms. Rivers testifying, and then I am going to offer
every Senator a chance to ask one question, no statements,
because then we have to move on with the rest of the panel. We
are somewhat time-constrained. But we really want to hear Ms.
Rivers' story. It is a powerful testament of unintended
consequences.
But I have a written opening statement which I will enter
into the record,\1\ without objection.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Chairman Johnson appears in the
Appendix on page 43.
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And what I would really like to do is turn it over to our
Ranking Member, Senator Tom Carper, who has really done yeoman
work on this particular issue for--I will not say how many
years, but you have certainly been dedicated to trying to
correct the problem of improper payments in the Federal
Government. So I think you probably have a few words to say,
and I will turn it over to you.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER
Senator Carper. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thanks
for pulling this together. And thanks to our witnesses for
joining us today.
As some of you know, the work that I have done on improper
payments for the last decade or so, I have done with Tom
Coburn, whose birthday was just this weekend. He is retired,
and I know he is here in spirit with us today because he cares
a lot about all the money that we are leaving on the table.
Remember the story about Willie Sutton? They used to say to
Willie Sutton, ``Why do you rob banks?'' He said, ``That is
where the money is.'' Why do we go after improper payments?
That is where the money is, and there is a whole ton of it, as
we know.
While our fiscal situation is improving, we still have a
big budget deficit. It is about one-third of what it was maybe
5, 6 years ago, but it is still too much. We have a debt of
about $18 trillion. At a time when many agencies are struggling
with tight budgets and facing sequestration on the horizon, we
just cannot afford to be making $125 billion in improper
payments like we apparently made last fiscal year (FY).
This latest improper estimate represents an almost $19
billion increase over the previous year. After the level of
improper payments went down for a number of years, we saw an
increase of $19 billion. These payments come from over 70
programs at more than 20 agencies in programs ranging from
Medicare and Medicaid to the Department of Defense (DOD). And
if we are going to get a better handle on our debt and our
deficit--and, frankly, improve Americans' impression of how we
take care of their money--we need to sharpen our pencils and
need to stop making the kind of expensive, avoidable mistakes
that lead to wasteful spending, and make our agencies and
programs vulnerable to fraud and abuse.
Congress has already taken some steps that are helping
agencies to address this challenge. Our improper payments
problems were first addressed through legislation that
originated in the House in 2002. The Improper Payments
Information Act required agencies to estimate the levels of
improper payments made each year.
In 2010, Dr. Coburn and I followed up on this effort with
the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act (IPERA),
which expanded the requirements for agencies to identify,
prevent and recover improper payments. In 2012, Senators Susan
Collins, Scott Brown, and I went further with the Improper
Payments Elimination and Recovery Improvement Act. Building off
a very good initiative of the Administration, the law made
permanent the ``Do Not Pay'' program, which is designed to
screen all Federal payments in order to double check basic
eligibility requirements. Simply put, ``Do Not Pay'' allows a
government agency to check whether someone should be paid
before the government pays them. I think that is common sense.
I hope to have a discussion with our witnesses from the Office
of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Government
Accountability Office (GAO)--about how all of these legislative
initiatives are working, or are not working, and what
additional measures we should consider.
We will also spend some time today discussing the specific
problems of agencies making payments to people who are actually
deceased. For example, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM)
Inspector General (IG) reported just 4 years ago that some $600
million in improper payments were made to Federal retirees
found to have died over the previous 5 years. However, such
payments to dead people are not unique to this one program, and
improving the collection, verification, and the use by Federal
agencies of data on individuals who have died will help curb
hundreds of millions, maybe billions of dollars in improper
payments.
I am actively working with Chairman Johnson, with the
Administration, and with our colleagues here on this Committee
to reintroduce legislation from the last congressional session
to tackle the very frustrating problem of improper payments to
dead people. Unfortunately, we have more work ahead.
Last week, the Social Security Inspector General released a
report stating that 6.5 million people have active Social
Security numbers (SSN) who, based on the Social Security
Administration's (SSAs) own records, would be more than 112
years old. I think maybe in our country we have had just a
handful of people actually live that long. Now we are told
there could be 6.5 million? I am not sure where they are, or if
they are out there. Maybe not.
In fact, a few thousand of the records reviewed by the
Inspector General seem to show ``living'' individuals with
active Social Security numbers who were born before the Civil
War. In the real world, public records show that only 35 people
worldwide are 112 or older.
We will hear today from the Social Security Administration
about their efforts to ensure accurate information about who is
alive or dead. However, what should be extremely concerning to
us is that inaccurate death data may lead to improper payments
by many other agencies across the government and also creates
greater vulnerability for fraud and identity theft. We will
hear more about this problem and the opportunities for a
solution from today's witnesses.
I want to make clear my view that the Administration
deserves a lot of credit for many initiatives to curb waste and
fraud, as Controller David Mader of the Office of Management
and Budget will soon describe. But we need to do more, and we
have to use every tool available to put our fiscal house back
in order and give the American people the government that they
expect and deserve.
It is the right thing to do on behalf of the taxpayers of
our country who entrust us with their hard-earned money. I
often think of how the Preamble to the Constitution speaks of
``a more perfect union.'' We will never be perfect in this
area, maybe in any area, but we should strive for perfection
because everything we do we know we can do better.
So in that spirit, I look forward to working with the
Administration, with our Chairman, and with our colleagues on
this Committee and outside this Committee to make real progress
this year on reducing improper payments.
Thank you so much.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Senator Carper.
It is the tradition of this Committee that we swear in
witnesses, so if you would all stand and raise your right hand.
Do you swear that the testimony you will give before this
Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth, so help you, God?
Ms. Rivers. I do.
Mr. Brune. I do.
Mr. O'Carroll. I do.
Mr. Mader. I do.
Ms. Davis. I do.
Mr. Bertoni. I do.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you.
Our first witness this afternoon will be Ms. Judy Rivers.
She is a private citizen from Logan, Alabama. She has twice
been mistakenly listed as deceased by the Federal Government.
Today she will tell her story of the financial impact errors in
the Death Master File have on innocent taxpayers.
And, Ms. Rivers, I just have to again commend you for being
willing to go public with certainly your trials and
tribulations, and hopefully your story can help prevent this
from happening to other Americans. So we look forward to your
testimony.
TESTIMONY OF JUDY C. RIVERS,\1\ LOGAN, ALABAMA
Ms. Rivers. Thank you very much.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Rivers appears in the Appendix on
page 47.
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First of all, good afternoon, Chairman Johnson, Ranking
Member Carper, and distinguished Members of this Committee.
Thank you for inviting me to speak about my experiences with
the Death Master File.
My name is Judy Rivers, and I have twice been listed on the
Death Master File. The first incidence occurred in 2001, and it
was actually fairly painless because, first of all, I had no
idea that it actually happened. I had a couple of identity
theft situations. Someone forced some money through my bank,
but I had never heard of the Death Master File. And we got
those cleared up, and I just continued on.
The second occurrence happened during one of the worst
periods of my life. I had just spent 17 months taking care of
two terminally ill parents, and I think I was probably at one
of the lowest points of my life at that time. So this situation
did not help anything.
I could never have imagined I would reach the point of
hopelessness, homelessness, financial destitution, loss of
reputation and credibility, unable to find a job, an apartment,
a student loan, or even buy a cell phone. Without a Social
Security number, you can do nothing in the United States.
Suspected as an identity thief became a way of life for me.
During the last 5 years, every H.R. person I have interviewed
with, police who have pulled me over for perhaps going a little
too fast, the first thing they do is go through your records,
put you through a file, and when you come up as deceased or
that the insurance--they actually do not know if it belongs to
you or not--then a lot of questions start, and it becomes
extremely uncomfortable.
I would like to make it clear that all of the problems I
have had during the past 5 years are not only a direct result
of the Death Master File. However, the Death Master File has
been like a propagating hydra underneath all of my problems. So
every single problem that I had, the Death Master File and the
fact that I did not have an identity made everything worse.
It started when I was providing full-time care to my
parents, as I said. When my parents passed away, their home was
sold, and I had to relocate very quickly. In my entire life,
since the age of 17, I have supported myself, put myself
through school. I have never not had a job, not worked, owned
my own firm for 30-something years, and really have been very
blessed in that area. So when I start looking for a job and an
apartment and I am not able to get one, it is like, ``Wait a
minute, what is going on here? ''
Everywhere I searched, everywhere I applied, I was turned
down. Finally, I had to leave my parents' home quickly, so I
contacted an old friend and asked if I could borrow a spare
room for a few weeks. That few weeks turned into 3 months.
Unfortunately, his landlord asked me to leave at that point
because I was not on the lease.
So I again went apartment searching. Again, the question of
my validity, my credibility, and because my Social Security
number did not check out, I was unable to find an apartment
anywhere.
After searching for a period of 3 weeks and with no choice
and something that I thought really only happened on
television, I had to move into my car. I did some research on
the Internet, got some basic information on how to do that, and
the best places to park, such as a truck stop for protection.
So my two puppies and I lived in my car for 3\1/2\ months.
During that entire time, I was constantly searching for a room,
for an apartment. I kept going out further in the areas of
Alabama, such as Logan, in order to find someone that probably
did not check that closely, but I was still unsuccessful.
My situation improved after I ran into an old friend named
Mary Kate. Mary Kate had a business building, and the top of it
she had converted to an apartment. And, knowing my parents very
well and being sympathetic to my situation, she offered the
apartment to me. I was in the apartment 2 hours later--after
the approval. It was huge, it was empty, and I felt like I was
living in a castle at that moment. No bed, no chair, no sofa,
no nothing, because all of my furniture was still in Dallas
where I was living when my parents became ill. She even brought
me a few houseware items, some towels, et cetera, and I was one
very happy person.
During the period of time I lived there, I continued my
search for a job. I continued my search for a student loan. I
had reviewed what was available on the Internet and decided
that I needed to increase my skills, particularly in the area
of project management. So I applied to over 20 online schools
and 3 physical schools for a student loan in order to take the
courses and get my certification. Everyone turned me down. The
information that I received when I asked why I was being turned
down always included comments such as, ``Your information
cannot be verified''; ``Your Social Security number did not
match''; or ``We cannot find your records.''
Finally, becoming concerned, I went to my local SSA office
and asked them to check my records to see if I was in the files
and if everything was fine. They did a very fast check, said,
``No, your records are all in order. Everything is fine, and,
yes, you are alive.'' I asked, ``Well, could there have been a
mistake in the past?'' And I was informed at that time, ``We
cannot check the past. If you had been listed at some time,
when the new files are created on a weekly basis and sent out,
your name would have been removed, and we do not retain
those.'' So there was really no way for them to tell me if I
had been listed or if I had not been listed. But since
everything was in order, it was fine, and I thought I was fine.
My situation at that point went from bad to worse. The
apartment building that I had lived in--and this was
approximately a year and a half later--a fire code made it
necessary for me to leave. As an office building, it only had
one entrance and exit, which was not acceptable in the Walker
County area at that time.
Again, I went on an apartment search. No luck, so,
unfortunately, one more time I had to move back into the car.
It was beginning to become a habit.
The next thing that happened to me, in March 2010, I was
involved in a car accident. A lady hit me, rear-ended me while
I was sitting at a red light. I did not feel anything, hear
anything. I woke up in the hospital a few days later and was
told that I had seven vertebrae that were in pretty bad shape.
They also kept asking me all of these questions, and there was
a lot of confusion about my insurance, whether I owned the car
that I was in, whether I really was who I said I was.
So I called an attorney, turned everything over to a legal
firm, and said, ``Whatever is happening, please get me out of
this.''
I went home--excuse me. When I say ``home,'' I mean a car.
I went back to the car, started researching the DMF, and,
frankly, trying to find anyone that could help me. During that
time, I contacted the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the
Social Security Administration, the Fair Credit Reporting
Agency (FCRA), everyone that I could think of and every name
that came up in my searches for any information or any help. No
agency could offer me any help.
The first people that I spoke to that offered me any type
of insight was Pam Dixon and Nina Olsen, both were of great
help to me in providing information and also advice on what to
do. Nothing to do, no apartment, still no job, still unable to
find any kind of job. A couple at my church found out my
situation and offered me a camper they had on their property in
which to live. I graciously and humbly accepted the invitation
and said, ``I will only be here for a few months, and then I
will be out of your hair.'' Well, actually, I am still there.
The good thing out of it is the fact that these people have
become very close to me. They are very close to parents. They
have taken me into their family, and I have really enjoyed
knowing them. I will tell you that living in a camper, and
especially with two puppies, is not a lot of fun, but I did
that.
The only work I have been able to obtain is work such as
cleaning houses and caregiving. And, very candidly, coming from
an executive position with a six-figure income, it is not
something you like but something you do when you have to do it.
One of the problems with the DMF, it is a bad database that
paves the way for millions of dollars of identity theft, tax
fraud, health care fraud, medical theft for both the living and
the deceased, and the U.S. Government. It seldom goes away when
it hits you, as with my experience. The problem is when you get
one area cleared up, such as one credit reporting agency (CRA)
or one banking institution report, someone calls in for a
report, and when they are on the phone--and I have listened to
this happen--they say, ``Well, this woman has applied for 23
credit cards in a period of 4 years. No one needs that many
credit cards. She cannot be honest.'' So then you are right
back on the death list again, and nothing goes forward.
So it is a matter of every time you get one spot solved, it
pops up somewhere else. You get one school to approve a loan.
Two weeks later, you get a notice because they have contacted
other people, and they have denied the loan.
So from a standpoint of trying to handle the entire
situation, at this time have not figured out a way to control
it. And I would like to say this: I had contacted all three
CRAs, the major ones, the banking financial institutions that
provide information. Only one company in a period of 3 years
ever responded to me. They did not answer a phone call. They
did not answer a letter. So I had no idea of what was going on
and where.
Finally, I contacted Mr. Ron Perholtz who started the DMF.
Ron and his brother, Robert, had several conference calls with
me. They checked their databases, and told me that I had been
listed in January 2001. And, finally ChexSystems sent me a
letter telling me that, yes, they had reported me as deceased,
and the information they received was directly from the Social
Security Administration and that I was listed as dead in 2008.
They did not provide the month, however.
So I found out where the information was coming from, but I
did not find any way to stop it, even though I have been
removed from the Death Master File.
What I do not understand is in the research I have done, I
have seen over 20 hearings in the Senate and in Congress on the
Death Master File. So far I have seen nothing come out of any
of these hearings. What I am hoping is that you will create a
program that will, first of all, provide help for victims,
because we have nowhere to go; second, that you will either
stop distributing the database or find a way to toss it out,
start over again, rebuild it, and do it correctly, and have
zero mistakes.
Thank you very much for having me here. I appreciate it.
And, please, do something for the government and do something
for the victims.
Chairman Johnson. Well, thank you, Ms. Rivers. Very
powerful testimony, and obviously that is the goal of this
Committee hearing, to try and work toward solutions so this
does not happen to another American.
My question is: You have been removed from the Death Master
File. Was that prompted by your action? Do you know when that
occurred? Or have you just found out that it just happened?
Ms. Rivers. Actually, I only found out in the last couple
of weeks that I was actually listed on the Death Master File in
2008. ChexSystems had--the one person that answered my letter--
sent me a letter that was dated August 22. The reality is I was
still sending them correspondence in October and further. In
this letter, it stated that they had reported me as deceased
upon information received from the Social Security
Administration and that I had died in 2008.
Chairman Johnson. But, again, there was not a process of
you working with the Social Security Administration where you
filled out some forms and you knew that your name was removed
from the Death Master File?
Ms. Rivers. Yes, sir. Although I presented paperwork to
check my DMF status, the SSA stated I was not and never had
been listed on the DMF or that I had ever been removed.
Chairman Johnson. You did go through that process?
Ms. Rivers. I went through the process of completing forms
several times in order to find out if I had been listed on the
DMF.
Chairman Johnson. But you only just found out that you have
been removed?
Ms. Rivers. Yes, sir. I had the letter, but, unfortunately,
since the letter said, ``Send us all of your information, and
we will do an investigation,'' I actually missed the part that
said, ``We did report you as deceased in''--they did tell me
the year.
Chairman Johnson. OK.
Ms. Rivers. ``We did report you as deceased. Based on the
information from Social Security, you died in 2008.'' And then
asked me to send them information and they would do an
investigation.
Chairman Johnson. OK. Well, we will ask some of those
question of our other witnesses. And, again, I would encourage
everybody to read Ms. Rivers' full testimony. It is a powerful
story. Senator Carper.
Senator Carper. Thank you so much for joining us. I
apologize for what you have had to go through.
Ms. Rivers. Thank you.
Senator Carper. Somebody needs to, on a lighter note, I
once asked a friend of mine, I said, ``Tell me about this Death
Master File. What is it?'' And he said to me, with tongue in
cheek, he said, ``It is a file in which you do not want your
name to appear, because if it does you are dead.'' Well, as it
turns out, not always. Not always. You are living proof that it
does not always happen that way.
If you had to go through this all over, knowing what you
know now, what would you do differently? And, again, what
specifically would you suggest that we do? Every one of us has
constituent services teams in our States, and their job is to
help people with a wide variety of problems. We are called
every day. And one of the issues that we deal with a lot is
Social Security. If you had been in Delaware, a citizen of
Delaware, and you called my office or Senator Chris Coons'
office or Congressman John Carney's, we would have been all
over this, all over this on your behalf. So just keep that in
mind. But what would you do differently? What should we do
differently, having heard your testimony?
Ms. Rivers. Right at this moment other than flying up to
Washington and sitting in the Social Security Administration's
office until I found some answers, I do not know what I would
have done differently. Having been in the marketing and
communications and business development area for 35 years, when
I found out what was happening, I sat down and created a
marketing plan for myself. And I am very thorough in that area,
a letter campaign to companies all over the United States. I
contacted everyone in the system that I could think of. I
searched for companies. I found that if I had experienced a
major identity theft right at the beginning, I would have been
much better off because at that point I would have been
alerted. I could have filed a police report and somebody would
have started investigating. But at that point where there was
no identity theft, very candidly no one really took it
seriously and no one believed it.
Senator Carper. OK. The second half of my question was:
What should we do differently? Those of us who serve here in
Congress, we serve you and the people in all 50 States. What
should we do differently?
Ms. Rivers. Regarding the DMF totally or just----
Senator Carper. Just to try to make sure this kind of thing
does not happen again to other folks in our country, given what
you have learned.
Ms. Rivers. Well, as I mentioned, I think the database
needs to be cleansed thoroughly. I think an agency should be
put in charge of it that actually can control it. Also, I think
the sources from which the information is obtained should be
clarified. I think very strong regulations should be placed on
the agencies that are distributing this information, because
one of the regulations is verify the information before it is
used. I was listed twice. No one ever contacted me. And of all
the people that I have talked to, no one has ever contacted
them.
The first thing I would do immediately is develop a
complete communications program for people, both living people
that have been listed mistakenly and families of individuals
that have been deceased and the deceased person has been used
for tax fraud, identity theft, draining a bank account, et
cetera. These people have nowhere to go either, and they hurt
just as badly as I do. But there is not one website, there is
not one place to call, there is no one that knows anything. I
visited 18 separate Social Security offices. Out of those 18,
only 12 knew what the Death Master File was. So even within the
Social Security system, the word is not getting through. These
people need to be trained to provide information.
Senator Carper. Thank you.
Chairman Johnson. Senator Lankford, one question?
Senator Lankford. Just a point of interest for me. How did
you prove you are alive? What documents did you have to bring
and the final shift on it when you finally had the opportunity
to be able to explain to someone, ``This is really me, I am
still alive''? What were you asked to be able to show to verify
that?
Ms. Rivers. The Social Security Administration asks for
your birth certificate, if you have it; driver's license with
photo or photographic ID. They would like to have copies of
invoices or correspondence that you have received either at
your place of business or your home, copies of check stubs.
Every single thing that you have that would identify you as you
and prove that it is you. And they are very thorough going
through that material.
All of that same material I included in every package I
sent out to every company I contacted.
Senator Lankford. OK. Thank you.
Chairman Johnson. Senator Peters, one question?
Senator Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Quite compelling testimony, Ms. Rivers. I also feel bad for
you and apologize that you have gone through all of this. We
have to get to the bottom of this. And I will say this is not
the first time I have heard of this case. We actually had a
case in Michigan earlier this year with a marine who was listed
as dead twice and lost veterans' benefits and had the Treasury
Department close his account, a whole host of difficulty. So,
unfortunately, there are others that are in this situation, not
just yourself.
The question by far is the timeline. You mentioned in your
testimony that in 2008 is when you learned that you were listed
as dead. But you also mentioned that you went to the Social
Security Administration, and they told you everything was OK,
not to worry. Where was that in the sequence of events? And
when did the record actually get cleared? Or is this something
that you get constantly put back on the list? If you could
clarify that for me, that would be helpful.
Ms. Rivers. OK. Let me step back and clarify one thing. I
did not learn that I was deceased in 2008. 2008 was when the
problem started happening, but I was not aware of what was
causing it. That is what caused me to go to the Social Security
office.
The first time I found out that I had been listed as
deceased was when, after my accident, the insurance company
settled, I went to a new bank and opened an account. And they
were happy to open an account and take my money. When I went
back 3 days later to open a savings account, they ran me
through the system. The bank manager came over and ran me
through the system, and said, ``We cannot help you today.'' And
I said, ``Why not?'' And she said, ``Because information we
have reports you as deceased.'' I demanded to know who was
reporting the information and also where it was coming from and
supposedly what date I died. They absolutely refused to tell me
anything. By laws and under FCRA, I thought that I was entitled
to that information. However, the bank refused to give it to
me, and later when I found our ChexSystems was the one that
supplied that information, they still refused to provide me
with anything.
So April 2010 was when I actually found out I was on the
Death Master File.
Senator Peters. And is that when you went to the Social
Security Administration and----
Ms. Rivers. Again. I had already been----
Senator Peters. Several times?
Ms. Rivers. Yes, sir.
Senator Peters. And several times you had gone, and they
had told you repeatedly you were OK.
Ms. Rivers. Each time.
Senator Peters. But it was clear you were not OK, as every
time you turned around, it was not. So you were being given
inaccurate information even though you were going into the
office?
Ms. Rivers. Correct.
Senator Peters. Very good. Thank you.
Chairman Johnson. Again, Ms. Rivers, thank you for your
testimony. I think every Member of this Committee offers an
apology and certainly our commitment that we are going to work
with the people in the agencies to try and create law, create
legislation that will prevent this from happening to another
American. So thank you again for your testimony, and you are
dismissed. Thank you.
Ms. Rivers. Thank you, sir.
Chairman Johnson. Our next witness will be Sean Brune. He
joins us today from the Social Security Administration where he
serves as a Senior Advisor for Audit in the Office of Budget,
Finance, Quality, and Management. Mr. Brune.
TESTIMONY OF SEAN BRUNE,\1\ SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE DEPUTY
COMMISSIONER, OFFICE OF BUDGET, FINANCE, QUALITY AND
MANAGEMENT, U.S. SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Brune. Thank you, Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member
Carper, Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me to
discuss steps to strengthen the integrity of Federal payments.
I am Sean Brune, Senior Advisor to the Deputy Commissioner for
Budget, Finance, Quality, and Management at the Social Security
Administration. My remarks will focus on our collection of
death information, its accuracy, and how we share it with other
agencies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Brune appears in the Appendix on
page 61.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We collect death information to timely stop paying Social
Security beneficiaries who have died and to begin paying
benefits to survivors. Each year, we post about 2.8 million
death reports, primarily from family members, funeral homes,
and States. This information serves us well, preventing around
$50 million in improper payments each month.
Over the years we have significantly improved our death
information collection process, and this information is highly
accurate. Of the millions of reports we receive annually, less
than one-half of one percent are subsequently corrected. Still,
we continually strive to improve the accuracy of our records.
Since 2002, we have worked with States to increase the use
of electronic death registration (EDR). EDR automates the death
reporting process by enabling States to verify the name and
Social Security number of a deceased individual against our
records before they issue a death certificate or transmit a
report of death to us. Thus, death information reported through
EDR is the most accurate possible. Currently, 37 States, the
city of New York, and the District of Columbia provide death
reports to us through EDR.
We are also currently carrying out a major multiyear
redesign of our death information system to make it more
efficient and reliable. Accurate information is important not
only for the administration of our programs, but because we
share the information with other agencies and with the public.
As a result of a lawsuit brought against us under the Freedom
of Information Act, we must share death information we collect
and maintain from non-State sources. We do so by distributing
information through the Department of Commerce. In sharing this
public file, subscribers are informed, and have been informed
for many years, that SSA does not have a death record for all
persons, that we cannot guarantee the veracity of the file, and
that the absence of a particular person is not proof that that
person is alive.
The Department of Commerce is authorized to share non-State
death information on an immediate basis with entities that have
a legitimate business purpose or a fraud prevention interest
for such information. However, under the Bipartisan Budget Act
of 2013, the public may only access non-State death information
that is at least 3 years old. Congress put this restriction
into place to ensure that fraudsters could not use a deceased
person's personally identifiable information (PII) to seek a
fraudulent tax refund.
We are limited in our ability to share State death
information. Specifically, under the Social Security Act, we
may share State death information with agencies administering
federally funded benefits. Thus, we share all of our death
information, including State records, with the Centers for
Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Department of
Defense, and the Internal Revenue Service, among others.
Treasury's Do Not Pay portal is an important part of the
Administration's efforts to fight improper payments and allows
Federal agencies to carry out a review of available databases
with relevant information on eligibility before they release
Federal funds. However, under current law, we cannot provide
State death information to the Department of Treasury for
purposes of Do Not Pay.
To remedy this, the Fiscal Year 2016 President's budget
includes a legislative proposal that would authorize us to
share all of the death information we maintain with Do Not Pay.
We note that S. 614, introduced by Ranking Member Carper,
cosponsored by Chairman Johnson and recently considered by this
Committee, also aims to address this gap. We would be happy to
provide technical assistance to this Committee on its bill.
We would also ask Congress to support the Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS) request for funding to increase
participation in EDR. Because death reports collected through
EDR are highly accurate, we believe that universal adoption of
EDR would be the single most effective step in ensuring that
our death records are of the highest quality.
Additionally, I would hope that you will support the robust
package of program integrity-related legislative proposals,
proposals that will help detect, prevent, and recover improper
payments included in the President's Fiscal Year 2016 budget
proposal.
Finally, I would like to recognize the work of our Office
of Inspector General--most recently in an audit in which they
looked at death information and decades-old records. We are
pleased that they found no fraud in either the Social Security
program or any other Federal program. We have agreed with 28 of
the 31 recommendations that the Office of Inspector General
(OIG) has made in this area over the past few years. As I
explain in my written statement, these recommendations have led
to enhancements in our systems.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to
discuss this very important issue. I would be happy to answer
any questions you may have.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Brune.
Our next witness is Patrick O'Carroll, Jr. He has been the
Inspector General for the Social Security Administration since
2004. Mr. O'Carroll has 26 years of service for the United
States Secret Service. Mr. O'Carroll.
TESTIMONY OF THE HON. PATRICK P. O'CARROLL, JR.,\1\ INSPECTOR
GENERAL, SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
Mr. O'Carroll. Good afternoon, Chairman Johnson, Ranking
Member Carper, and Members of the Committee. Thank you for the
invitation to participate in this discussion.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. O'Carroll appears in the Appendix
on page 68.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
My office investigates hundreds of cases of Social Security
number misuse every year, but recently one incident stood out
from the rest. A man opened two bank accounts with Social
Security numbers that belonged to people born in 1886 and 1893.
We can safely assume these people, who today would be 129 and
122 years of age, are deceased.
However, according to SSA's database of Social Security
number holders, these people are alive. They are living in the
sense that SSA does not have dates of death for either person
on their number holder records.
Our auditors followed up and found out these two records
were anything but unique. We recently reported that 6.5 million
people whose Social Security records indicate that they are
over 112 years old do not have a date of death on their Social
Security number record. Without a date of death in SSA's
database, these people do not appear on the agency's Death
Master File.
I should note that none of these aged number holders are
improperly receiving Social Security benefits, and overpayments
are not occurring. But these inaccuracies create a significant
void in SSA's death data that is available to the public. We
have recommended that SSA update the records and resolve the
discrepancies we identified in our report.
This audit is relevant to today's discussion on improper
payments because benefit-paying agencies like HHS and the IRS,
and other public and private entities, use the Death Master
File to verify deaths and ensure payment accuracy.
Additionally, as the Committee knows, the Improper Payments
Elimination and Recovery Improvement Act of 2012 included a Do
Not Pay provision which requires Federal agencies to review
lists of deceased or ineligible individuals before making
payments. The Death Master File is one of those lists. To
identify and prevent its own and other agencies' improper
payments, SSA must collect and maintain accurate death records.
It is equally important to ensure living individuals are not
listed as deceased in SSA's records.
There are less than 1,000 cases each month in which a
living individual is mistakenly included on the Death Master
File. SSA said it moves quickly to correct the situation when
errors occur. The agency reports that it has not found
conclusive evidence of past data misuse. However, we remain
concerned because these errors can lead to premature benefit
termination and Social Security underpayments and cause
financial hardship and distress to those affected.
I have addressed in my written statement recent actions
that limit the sharing of personal information on SSA's death
records and will delay the public release of death data through
the Death Master File. We believe these actions could mitigate
some of the issues I just mentioned.
SSA must accurately process the death reports it receives
to terminate payments to deceased beneficiaries and avoid
overpayments. In several audits, we have estimated SSA has paid
millions of dollars to beneficiaries after their deaths.
Based on our audit work and recommendations, SSA now
matches and corroborates its payment records with its number
holder records every month and exchanges data with HHS to
identify deceased beneficiaries based on their enrollment in,
but non-usage of, Medicare. These initiatives have improved
SSA's ability to process benefit terminations due to death,
recover overpayments, and refer allegations of deceased payee
fraud to our office.
Last year, we investigated over 600 people for deceased
payee fraud. These are cases of individuals who conceal
someone's death to illegally collect their Social Security
benefits, with criminal convictions of about 150 people and $55
million in recoveries, restitutions, and projected savings.
In one example, a woman collected her mother's Social
Security and Federal Civil Service benefits for 35 years after
her mother died. SSA identified this case through the Medicare
Non-Utilization Project and referred it to us to investigate.
Last year, the woman pled guilty to government theft and was
sentenced to 18 months of house arrest. She was ordered to
repay about $350,000 to the SSA and OPM. This is a high
investigative priority. Cases of deceased payee fraud can lead
to significant government recoveries and savings, and Federal
prosecution efforts help deter others from committing this
crime.
Before I conclude, I want to acknowledge that our auditors'
and special agents' outstanding work on this topic has recently
garnered national media attention. We are pleased that our
efforts are making an impact and promoting overdue discussions
on these issues. But I speak for my entire staff when I say we
do not do this work to make news headlines. We do this work,
and we will continue to do it to ensure the integrity of SSA's
programs and to promote public confidence in Social Security
and the Federal Government. This is and always will be our sole
mission.
We will continue to work with SSA and your Committee to
address the issues discussed today. Thank you again for the
invitation to testify, and I will be happy to answer any
questions.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Mr. O'Carroll.
Our next witness is Mr. David Mader. He is the current
Controller of the Office of Management and Budget. Mr. Mader
held various positions at the IRS from 1971 to 2003 and then 10
years in the private sector before rejoining the Federal
service. Mr. Mader.
TESTIMONY OF THE HON. DAVID MADER,\1\ CONTROLLER, OFFICE OF
MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
Mr. Mader. Thank you, Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member
Carper, and distinguished Members of the Committee, for
inviting me here today to discuss the Federal Government's
ongoing efforts to prevent, reduce, and recapture improper
payments. I appreciate the opportunity to provide an update on
this important topic. Our partnership with the Congress,
consultation with GAO, and the important support of the IG
community over the years has been vital to our efforts.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Mader appears in the Appendix on
page 74.
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Addressing improper payments is a central component of this
administration's effort to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse.
When the President took office in 2009, the improper payment
rate was 5.2 percent, an all-time high. Since then, the
Administration, working together with the Congress, has made
progress by strengthening the accountability and transparency
through annual reviews by Inspectors General and expanded
requirements for high-priority programs such as the requirement
to report supplemental measures and program information on
paymentaccuracy.gov. As a result of this concerted effort, in
2013 we reported an improper rate of 3.53 percent.
During fiscal year 2014, we experienced an improper payment
rate increase in major programs including Medicare Fee-for-
Service, Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Medicaid, and
Unemployment Insurance. Over the same period, other major
programs experienced improper payment rate decreases, including
Medicare Part C, the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance
Program (SNAP), and Public Housing/Rental Assistance. As a net,
these changes resulted in a governmentwide improper payment
rate of 4.02 percent, or $125 billion. Notwithstanding this,
agencies recovered roughly $20 billion in overpayments through
payment recapture audits and other methods in 2014.
While progress has been made over the years, the time has
come for a more aggressive strategy to reduce the levels of
improper payments that we currently are seeing. That is why the
Administration has proposed to make a significant investment in
activities to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent correctly,
by expanding oversight activities in the largest benefit
programs and increasing investments.
Over the years the Administration has worked with the
Congress on legislation regarding this topic, and these laws
have provided agencies with new tools and techniques to
prevent, reduce, and recover improper payments.
The President's Fiscal Year 2016 budget provides the
opportunity to build on this congressional support and
administration activities to reduce improper payments. There is
compelling evidence that investments in administrative
resources can significantly decrease the rate of improper
payments and recoup many times their initial investment.
Examples of proposals in the fiscal year 2016 budget
include: a robust package of Medicaid and Medicare program
integrity proposals; strategic reinvestments in the IRS; a
robust package of Social Security program integrity proposals;
a proposal to expand the Department of Labor's initiative to
conduct Reemployment and Eligibility Assessments and
Reemployment Services; and improving further the accuracy of
the Death Master File by sharing across multiple agencies.
And this began long before we knew what the improper
payment rate was going to be for the Office of Management and
Budget issued an appendix to its circular on internal controls
entitled, ``Requirements for Effective Estimation and
Remediation of Improper Payments,'' and agencies were
instructed to re-examine improper payment strategies on a
number of fronts governmentwide. These new guidelines were
issued in October 2014 and provide strategies for agencies and
Inspectors General on key improper payments.
In addition to these governmentwide initiatives, on
February 26, 2015, the Director of OMB sent letters to agency
heads in four organizations--Department of Labor (DOL), HHS,
SSA, and Treasury--that have the largest priority programs.
This direction requires the early implementation of the
Appendix C requirements that I just mentioned by April 30 of
this year.
The direction further requires that each agency conduct the
following analysis and present it to OMB: one, provide a
comprehensive corrective action plan for each program in
question; two, review new categories for reporting improper
payments; and, three, provide analysis linking the agency
efforts in establishing internal controls to the internal
controls that they have for improper payments.
Under this administration we have focused on the increased
use of technology and sharing data to address improper
payments. The effective use of data analytics also provides
insight into methods of improving performance and
decisionmaking capabilities.
Examples of agencies currently using data analytics to
prevent improper payments include the CMS' Fraud Prevention
System and DOL's Integrity Center of Excellence.
Improper payments remain a priority to this Administration.
Although progress has been made, much more remains to be done,
and we need your help. We look forward to working with the
Congress to pass the President's 2016 budget, and we expect
additional progress as we execute against our new improper
payments guidance during this fiscal year.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify, and I
look forward to your questions.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Mader.
Our next witness is Ms. Beryl Davis. Ms. Davis is the
Director of Financial Management and Assurance at the
Government Accountability Office. Ms. Davis.
TESTIMONY OF BERYL H. DAVIS,\1\ DIRECTOR, FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
AND ASSURANCE, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE;
ACCOMPANIED BY DANIEL BERTONI, DIRECTOR, EDUCATION, WORKFORCE,
AND INCOME SECURITY
Ms. Davis. Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, Members
of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to be here
today to discuss improper payments and the use of death data to
prevent payments to deceased individuals.
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\1\ The joint prepared statement of Ms. Davis and Mr. Bertoni
appears in the Appendix on page 80.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In fiscal year 2014, Federal agencies estimated that
improper payments totaled $124.7 billion. This represents a
significant increase of almost $19 billion from the fiscal year
2013 estimate. The increase can be attributed primarily to
increased error rates in three major programs: Medicare Fee-
for-Service, Medicaid, and the Earned Income Tax Credit. These
three programs accounted for about 65 percent of the 2014
estimate.
Nevertheless, improper payments are a governmentwide
problem. The $124.7 billion estimate was attributable to 124
programs across 22 agencies. Twelve programs had estimates
exceeding $1 billion. One large program, Temporary Assistance
for Needy Families (TANF), with outlays of more than $16
billion, did not report an estimate, citing statutory
limitations.
Senator Carper. Say that again, please.
Ms. Davis. TANF, with outlays of more than $16 billion, did
not report an estimate, citing statutory limitations.
In the Financial Report of the U.S. Government for 2014,
GAO reported the issue of improper payments as a material
weakness in internal control because the Federal Government is
unable to determine the full extent to which improper payments
occur and reasonably assure that appropriate actions are taken
to reduce them.
Inspectors General are required to report annually on their
agencies' compliance with criteria in improper payments
legislation. In December 2014, we reported that 10 agencies did
not comply with all of the criteria for 2013, as reported by
their Inspectors General. The two most common areas of
noncompliance were publishing and meeting improper payment
reduction targets and reporting error rates below 10 percent.
There are a number of strategies that agencies can employ
to reduce improper payments, including analyzing the root
causes of improper payments in order to design and implement
effective preventive controls.
One major root cause for improper payments is insufficient
documentation. For example, HHS reported this is a primary root
cause of improper payments for home health claims in its fee-
for-service program.
Another driver for many programs, such as the Earned Income
Tax Credit Program, is agencies' inability or failure to verify
eligibility requirements, including recipient income or the
number of dependents.
One example of preventive controls to address underlying
root causes is eligibility validation through sharing of data,
such as the SSA death data. The Do Not Pay initiative is a Web-
based centralized data matching service that allows agencies to
review multiple databases, including certain death data
maintained by SSA, to determine payment eligibility prior to
making payments. SSA is uniquely positioned to collect and
manage death data to help prevent improper payments at the
Federal level.
SSA maintains two sets of death data. Its full death file,
which is only available to certain eligible entities, contains
data from many sources, such as funeral directors, family
members, other Federal agencies, and States. The Death Master
File, which is available to the public, is a subset of the full
file because it does not contain death data from States.
While reviewing death data can be a useful tool for
agencies, there are opportunities for SSA to improve the
accuracy and completeness of these data. We have reported that
SSA's procedures for collecting, verifying, and maintaining
death reports could result in untimely or erroneous death data.
For example, we reported in November 2013 that SSA did not
independently verify death reports for all Social Security
beneficiaries or any non-beneficiaries before including them in
death records.
When data is not verified, there is an increased risk that
such data will be inaccurate or incomplete. This can result in
other Federal benefit-paying agencies using these data to make
improper payments.
In our November 2013, we identified several types of errors
with SSA's death data. For example, we found instances of
records where the date of death preceded the date of birth and
records showing recorded ages at death between 115 and 195
years of age.
We recommended that SSA conduct a risk assessment to
identify the scope and extent of these types of errors, ways to
address them, and the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of
doing so.
Our report also noted that SSA lacked written guidelines
for determining agency eligibility to access the full death
file. We recommended that SSA develop and publicize guidance to
more systematically determine access eligibility and, thus,
better inform agencies as to when they might be eligible for
access to more complete death data.
Because death data can be a useful tool in data matching to
prevent improper payments, continuing efforts are needed to
help minimize the risks posed by inaccurate and incomplete
death data and ensure that agencies receive appropriate access
to these data.
As a final point, we would like to emphasize that with
outlays from major programs expected to increase, it is
critical that actions are taken to reduce improper payments.
There are considerable opportunities for agencies' auditors and
other members of the accountability community to work together
with Congress in ensuring that taxpayers' dollars are
adequately safeguarded and used for their intended purposes.
Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, Members of the
Committee, this completes my prepared statement. I, along with
my colleague, Mr. Bertoni, who does work on the Death Master
File, are happy to answer any questions.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you, Ms. Davis. I was actually
going to point out the fact that Mr. Bertoni has joined the
panel here. He is the Director of GAO's Education, Workforce,
and Income Security team, and he might assist in answering
questions.
I will start questions with Mr. Brune. Prior to coming here
today, did you take a look at Ms. Rivers' case just to find out
exactly what the status is with her current status?
Mr. Brune. Senator, the news media did not share the case
with us beforehand. I did know that Ms. Rivers was testifying
today. I did not look at the specifics of her case. I think it
would be unwise to discuss that in an open forum. But I would
be happy to answer questions about the scenario.
Chairman Johnson. Fair enough. How many people are you
aware of are in Ms. Rivers' position?
Mr. Brune. Fewer than 9,000 a year have that circumstance
happen to them. Usually, Senator, we learn of the occurrence by
the individual reporting it directly to us. We advise the
individual that we can correct their record if they visit our
office. As Ms. Rivers identified, we request that an individual
bring several proofs of identity with them, including a State-
issued form of identity, a birth certificate if they have one,
so that we can correct the record. And when the individual
leaves our office, we issue them a letter indicating that there
was an error and that it has been corrected.
Chairman Johnson. So the name may be removed from the Death
Master File, but the effects continue to linger, correct? Can
you just describe what happens there with credit agencies and
banks and credit card companies?
Mr. Brune. Sure. The Social Security Administration shares
the public Death Master File--as Ms. Davis just indicated--that
does not include State data, but still contains around 84
million records--with the Department of Commerce. Commercial
entities can procure that file from the Department of Commerce.
It is widely used across not only the government but the
commercial sector as well.
The Department of Commerce requires parties that receive
that information to subscribe to updates, but sometimes some
entities who have looked at a Death Master File have not looked
at the most current Death Master File.
Chairman Johnson. So how often do you update your Death
Master File with Commerce?
Mr. Brune. Weekly.
Chairman Johnson. Weekly. And how often are the commercial
entities required, supposedly, to update those files?
Mr. Brune. It depends on the contractual arrangement that
an entity has with the Department of Commerce.
Chairman Johnson. Can you describe how somebody who is
listed on the Death Master File, how identity thiefs can create
fraud with those names? I can understand the Master File is
published and people can quickly try and claim a tax refund
with that Social Security number, which is why now the law
states that that information is going to be held for 3 years.
But how else is that fraud committed?
Mr. Brune. Well, I think our Inspector General might be in
a better position to answer that.
Chairman Johnson. Mr. O'Carroll.
Mr. O'Carroll. Yes, Chairman. One of the ways that we are
finding that the fraudsters are doing it is they will go to one
record that is out there, for example, a State record listing
all the deceased people in it. And then they will go, and they
will take a look at the Death Master File and see if a person
is alive in one record and then dead in the other record. And
then what they will do is they will claim to be that person and
then go after their benefits. So that is one method of it.
And as we know, in other cases, they will adopt the name
and the information of the person and then file for credit and
default.
Chairman Johnson. Mr. Brune, is there a law that prevents
you from doing this? Why do not we just purge the Death Master
File from anybody over a certain age?
Mr. Brune. Let me first say, Senator, that the records from
which we extract the Death Master File we procure largely from
the States. The primary reporters are State Bureaus of Vital
Statistics, the individual's family members, doctors. The
database contains over 100 million records. We have collected
this information since SSA began, approximately 80 years ago.
The recordkeeping processes, as you might imagine, have
evolved over 80 years. In most cases, our current program
policy requires evidence of death. The risk in just doing a
blanket update or blanket change in data is that it is highly
likely that we would create another scenario just like Ms.
Rivers, because in the IG's report they identified--in that
group of 6.5 million records--that there were, in fact, living
individuals. The reason that is, is because oftentimes
individuals who are auxiliaries on the record--spouses,
children, et cetera--are listed under a wage earners number and
thus are connected in our databases. But the way we connected
them in years past is not as accurate as it is right now. So it
is possible that while the primary number holder--the wage
earner may be deceased, there are records linked to that that
are records of individuals that are not deceased.
So the primary reason we do not do that is that we want to
prevent any inadvertent additions to the DMF of individuals who
are still alive.
Chairman Johnson. Mr. O'Carroll, we are talking about how
many people over 112 that you identified?
Mr. O'Carroll. 6.5 million, Chairman.
Chairman Johnson. Right. On the Numident file, correct?
That is where we need to purge these.
Mr. O'Carroll. Yes.
Chairman Johnson. This is where we want to put in a date of
death, basically, correct?
Mr. O'Carroll. Correct.
Chairman Johnson. But how many people actually are living
today that are over 112?
Mr. O'Carroll. Well, in one of SSA's databases it will show
them as deceased, and then in another database it will show
them alive, and there are 1.4 million of them. And we have not
set any number in terms of the actual living. We use the
estimate similar to Mr. Brune's of about 1,000 a month living
people are listed on the Death Master File.
Chairman Johnson. But, again, those would be much younger
people, so I am still not getting a good answer to my question.
Why do not we just purge the Numident--or list on the Numident
a date of death for people that are over--I do not know, let us
start with 150. Then maybe next month we knock it down to 140,
then 130, and have some protection for somebody that just
might--again, when we are talking about 6.5 million records out
there, obviously there are about 6.499999 million of those
people that really are dead and are not going to be affected by
this. But why do not we do that to prevent the type of fraud
that this type of situation occurs or allows?
Mr. O'Carroll. Well, correct, Chairman, on that. One of our
recommendations is just as you are saying with purging it. One
thought is that SSA could just make a notation on each of those
files of people over 112 years of age like they do for other
reasons. If you have to get a replacement Social Security
number as a battered spouse, for security reasons, they put a
notation or a SPINCODE and it shows that you have two Social
Security numbers. What we are recommending is that they just
put a record like that on all the people over 112 years of age,
so that way, one, it would reflect the SSN as inactive but
also, if accidentally somebody who had a birth date of, let us
say, 1957 and it was keyed in as 1857, when they realize that
they are losing benefits, it would be easy for SSA to remove
the code.
Chairman Johnson. So can the Social Security Administration
do that themselves administratively, or do you need Congress to
pass a law to allow that to happen?
Mr. Brune. Senator Johnson, we are currently in the
analysis phase of doing just that. The audit was issued
approximately 10 days ago. The good news is Mr. O'Carroll and
his team have looked at this topic previously, so we had begun
an analysis prior to the audit's release. So far we have been
able to electronically verify data and update 200,000 records
based on prior audits. We are currently initiating the review
of those 6.5 million records. We are hopeful that there is
information in our data set that will allow us, maybe not to
confirm the actual date of death but to confirm that an
individual is deceased and that individual's SSN can be marked
as such.
Chairman Johnson. When you complete your analysis and you
need a legislative fix for this, please come to us as quickly
as possible. Senator Carper.
Senator Carper. Thanks very much. Again, our thanks to all
of you. Mr. Bertoni, nice of you to join us. We appreciate it.
I am going to ask you a question. We are not going to let you
just sit here and just look good.
Mr. Bertoni. Sure.
Senator Carper. We are going to ask you to give us some
good advice.
I want to go back a little bit in time. I never thought
much of improper payments until 2002, and I think it was a
House member who proposed that we at least start requiring
agencies to note what improper payments are and, second, begin
reporting them. And every year after that, 2003, 2004, 2005, I
noticed there was an increase in the level of improper
payments, and I did not feel good about it because the number
just kept going up. And somebody finally said, well, the reason
why they are going up is more and more agencies are actually
getting on board and beginning to report improper payments.
I am still not convinced the Department of Defense fully
reports their improper payments. You may be a better judge of
that than I am.
But around 2010, we reached a point where Dr. Coburn and I
sensed that maybe most of the lion's share of agencies were
actually reporting their improper payments. And we added a
reform. Not only did we want agencies to figure out--to record
their improper payments, and report them. That was the 2002
law. We said we also want the agencies to stop making improper
payments. We also said we want them to the extent they can
recover monies, we wanted them to recover monies.
Did somebody report that last year--I thought I heard $20
billion was recovered.
Mr. Mader. $20 billion, sir.
Senator Carper. $20 billion. That is a good amount of
money. And our next step was to say we want to help the
administration on Do Not Pay, the Do Not Pay list, which was
part of, I think, our 2012 legislation.
Last Congress, we tried to go further and go after payments
to dead people and that sort of thing. And we did not get our
legislation through the House, because of the objection of one
Subcommittee within the Ways and Means Committee, and so we are
going to take another run at it.
I was stunned when I saw the number, the improper payments
number, for 2014, because we had seen during a number of years
that the number was going down beginning in 2010, 2011, 2012,
2013. And then it pops up by about $20 billion in 2014.
Our friend Mr. Mader has given us, I think, a very good to-
do list--I mentioned this to the Chairman--a very good to-do
list on, I think, pages 2 and 3 of his testimony. I will not go
through it all, but it involves program integrity work in a
variety of areas. And it involves actually spending some money
at the IRS to give them the tools that they need. I think we
have a lot of people who do work on the Earned Income Tax
Credit filings. I think about two-thirds to three-fourths of
the people who help people file for the EITC are people that
are not CPAs. They might be very good people, but they are not
really regulated by the Treasury. They may not have the kind of
credentials that we might hope.
I want you to drill down on that point. There is a lot of
talk here, a lot of important discussion on the Social Security
aspects of this and paying people that are dead and having
folks listed that are 150 years old. I want you to drill down
for us on the EITC. I want you to drill down on the credentials
of the folks that are literally helping most people file for
the EITC and what the problem is here and what we should do
about it.
Mr. Mader. Thank you, Senator. Well, I think----
Senator Carper. Because it is a lot of money. As I recall,
it is a lot of money.
Mr. Mader. It is a lot of money, and I think it is
important to at least step back and remember that the Earned
Income Tax Credit Program was passed under President Reagan
back years and years ago.
Senator Carper. I think he called it the ``best anti-
poverty program in the country,'' and he was probably right.
Mr. Mader. And last year, actually 26 million American
families benefited from that program, so I think it is a
program that over the decades has proven its value. And I
think, Senator, you touched on--and, actually, Ms. Davis
touched on it, too. It is a program that has a high degree of
complexity in that it is really based on claiming dependent
children at a certain income level. And, with separations, with
divorces, establishing the custodial parent, making that
determination, and then also as Ms. Davis testified, actually
verifying the income when you are making that credit adds to
the complexity of that program.
But I think you touched on an area that the Administration
has been asking for help of the Congress over the last couple
years, and that is the fact that well over 50 percent of these
26 million EITC payments are actually done by third-party
providers who are not CPAs, they are not enrolled agents, they
are not individuals who are authorized to actually represent
you or I in front of the Internal Revenue Service. They are
just preparers.
And having dealt with this issue for a number of years at
the IRS, I am struck by the fact that as a society we seem to
register, regulate, and license electricians and plumbers and
health care workers, yet we do not want to regulate individuals
who actually have a partnership with the IRS in administering
the tax administration and this important credit in a very fair
way--fair to the taxpayers and fair to the government.
So I think in the President's budget he once again asks for
a series of initiatives, whether it be resources or some
assistance in regulating and licensing these preparers.
Senator Carper. I would just say to my colleagues, I would
just invite their attention to your testimony, and I think it
maybe starts on pages 2 and 3. But it says, ``Examples of
proposals that are in the 2006 budget include,'' and you give
us five or six really good ideas for--I call it a ``to-do
list.'' I like to say GAO gives us a good to-do list every
other year, the high-risk list, and you have given us a really
good to-do list, and I hope we take it seriously. I plan to.
Let me just ask each of you, starting with you, Mr.
Bertoni, you heard this other testimony. You heard the
testimony of the opening witness. Give us one thing--say if you
do nothing else, Committee, Senate, do this to address this
problem.
Mr. Bertoni. I think the first step is to really look at
cleaning up the data in the file. There is a lot of noise in
that file. When I hear things like we receive millions of
reports annually, less than one-half of one percent are
corrected, that gives me a real concern that this is being
brushed off in some ways. We know there are issues. We know
there are problems. And it is easy to say that when you are not
looking at large blocs of cases. If you are not verifying
reports from family members, if you are not verifying reports
from funeral directors, if you are not verifying reports from
folks who are non-beneficiaries, and last, you are not
verifying reports where some piece of the data does not match
the Numident record, that is a significant potential amount of
potential non-matches that you might have to correct down the
road had you done those verifications.
And to tee off Pat's report, you cannot fix 6.5 million
reports if you do not know about it. So we have to look at the
integrity of the data, clean it up, whether it is a lookback or
whether it is prospective, but there is a lot of noise in this
file that needs to be taken care of before it can be a much
better program integrity tool.
Senator Carper. Good. Thank you very much, all of you.
Chairman Johnson. Senator Lankford.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD
Senator Lankford. Thank you. Thank you all for being here.
I will get a chance to talk through several things.
Let me just make a quick comment, Social Security
Administration. This has been an ongoing issue for a while that
several of us have talked about dealing with Social Security
disability. I know this Committee for a while has dealt with
it. I have dealt with it for quite a while as well. I have a
letter that is still outstanding with SSA dealing with the
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking from February of last year
dealing with just getting a full record, medical record that
has to be submitted. I am not going to bring that up today, but
just saying that is a letter that is outstanding. We know that
that is coming, are still watching for that and anticipating
that to be able to come soon. So I am not going to try to ask
you a question directly because that is not related to this
hearing, but I did want to tell you we are still waiting.
Mr. Mader, let me ask you a question. Is the Social
Security Administration the right place to be able to manage
the Death Master File? It seems like that has kind of grown up
organically as a place that is going to be gathered. Is that
the right spot, according to OMB? Or is there a better place to
be able to manage that file?
Mr. Mader. Senator, we believe that Social Security is the
organization that is best suited to collect this data, and I
think as my two colleagues from Social Security have testified,
they are receiving the information both directly from families,
from funeral homes, from States, but I think what we have is a
process and a system that needs to be expanded. As both
gentlemen testified, we do not have every State that has access
in using the electronic system, which clearly improves the
quality of the data.
So I think a lot of the fixes that we talked about today
need to be put in place.
Senator Lankford. But fixable in that current structure and
leave it in SSA?
Mr. Mader. Yes, I believe so. Yes, sir.
Senator Lankford. The Social Security Administration, do
they feel like this is part of their mission to be able to keep
up this file, this is important? Because obviously it is being
shared with multiple agencies, multiple entities are looking to
the Social Security Administration to get that information.
Mr. Brune. Senator, it is important to understand that we
do need the death information to administer our programs. The
use of our death information, because it is consolidated across
multiple reporting sources and it is, in fact, very reliable,
has grown in value over time, and so now those records are
being used for purposes they were not intended for when they
were actually collected decades ago. A date of birth and a date
of death from several decades ago, nobody envisioned that in
this day and age that it would be available electronically to
multiple parties outside the agency.
Senator Lankford. But is that something the agency sells at
this point? What is the asset there?
Mr. Brune. We provide the information to the Department of
Commerce. Commerce distributes it.
Senator Lankford. OK. Is there a cost to that from Commerce
or a cost to Commerce or to other agencies that they pay to be
able to get that information?
Mr. Brune. Yes, there is. We are reimbursed for our cost to
generate the file.
Senator Lankford. OK. What about to private entities?
Mr. Brune. Commerce deals with the private entities.
Senator Lankford. Does that come back to the Social
Security Administration to reimburse them? Or----
Mr. Brune. No.
Senator Lankford [continuing]. Come back to Commerce?
Mr. Brune. Commerce.
Senator Lankford. OK. Do States charge us to be able to get
that information?
Mr. Brune. Do States charge us?
Senator Lankford. Yes.
Mr. Brune. It depends on their purpose. If they are
administering a federally funded benefit, they are entitled to
the data.
Senator Lankford. But when you get the death information
from States, do they charge the Social Security Administration
for that information?
Mr. Brune. We pay the States to provide us death
information.
Senator Lankford. That is what I am asking. So then how
much are we paying the States for that?
Mr. Brune. It depends on whether they provide it via
electronic death registration. Today that price ranges from is
$3.09 to $0.86 per record, depending on how quickly we receive
it. The reason we offer a premium there is--it comes to us now
pre-verified. So the State has run the name and number against
our record and confirmed that it is a match. We also get the
reports more timely.
Senator Lankford. So give me an approximate cost there? We
are talking $3 a person to be able to get that information----
Mr. Brune. Generally, $3 a record, correct. And for those
that send the information via non-electronic death registration
means, it is under $1 reimbursement.
Senator Lankford. And then what does SSA do with that then
to be able to verify? It has not been verified. You bought the
information for $1 from the States. Then is it $2 cost to be
able to go and verify those records?
Mr. Brune. We annotate our records that it is an unverified
report, and we would have to verify the information in order to
process it for our benefit purposes.
Senator Lankford. OK. So then once it is processed, is
there a public and an internal on this Death Master File? I am
trying to figure out the process here. We are now paying to get
the records. We are selling those to Commerce who is then
selling it to agencies and other private individuals to recoup
the cost here. We have a lot of money and a lot of names that
are moving at this spot and to be able to verify that. So once
we go through the verification--how much does it cost to verify
someone that is a non-verified name coming from a State?
Mr. Brune. Well, it is not a discrete unit cost that is
easy to come to----
Senator Lankford. Is there an average cost? I am sure that
it is going to cost more for others, but does SSA have an
average cost on that?
Mr. Brune. Well, usually what we do is we have one of our
technicians contact a family member and confirm the death.
Senator Lankford. OK. According to the OIG report--and I
want to be able to ask you about this, Mr. O'Carroll found
180,000 individuals who died while receiving disability
payments but were not recorded in the Death Master File.
Obviously, they are already in the Social Security disability
process as well. There were e-verify requests for those
deceased individuals and more than 90 voter registrations in
that group that were already dead.
So help me understand this process. As you see it at this
point, we have verified records from States. SSA is verifying
them when they are coming in, yet we have 6.5 million that are
over 112 years old, and we have individuals that are on Social
Security disability, 180,000 individuals that you found that
are already dead.
Mr. O'Carroll. Well, Senator, that is our biggest concern
when we take a look at living people over 112 years of age,
when we did our audit on it, there were 13 people in the United
States. By the time we finished our audit, there were 109. And
we figured there are about 35 people over 112 in the whole
world.
So, anyway, all those valid Social Security numbers that
are out there, if somebody takes those numbers, then they can
start misusing them, and our biggest concern on it, is that
they will be ending up using--our concern on it is that when
that information gets out there, somebody can impersonate
another person, they can vote, they can get driver's licenses,
et cetera.
Senator Lankford. So are these names that have never been
submitted by a State so they have not been verified by SSA
because no one has ever turned those names up the first time?
Mr. O'Carroll. Most of the 112 are from years ago, back in
the 1970s, when people came in and reported themselves----
Senator Lankford. What about these on disability, that you
found these individuals that are already deceased that are also
on the disability roll?
Mr. O'Carroll. We are finding with that issue on it--we are
finding people that are listed as deceased and getting
benefits. The Numident, which is the record that we are talking
about today, the one that is used for the Death Master File, is
one file at SSA. And then the other file, the Master
Beneficiary Record, is another file. So when somebody calls in
and says that there is a deceased person, to immediately stop
the benefits from going out, SSA puts it right on the payment
record and stops it. But they may not put it on the Numident--
and Sean could probably describe it a little bit better. It
gets confusing when you are talking auxiliaries and different
things like that. So then the Numident does not list the person
as being deceased, and that is where the big issue is. Two
different records.
Senator Lankford. And they are opening bank accounts, they
are voting. All these different things that you found as you
went through this process on these false Social Security
numbers then are people that have died or their number is still
being used.
Mr. O'Carroll. Correct. And it gets even more complicated
in terms of that--as I said before, when somebody knows that
SSA thinks that a person is alive, but they know the person is
dead, they might even try to get Social Security benefits.
Senator Lankford. OK. I have exceeded my time. I yield
back.
Chairman Johnson. Senator Peters.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PETERS
Senator Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for your testimony, and after listening to Ms.
Rivers, we have raised a lot of interesting issues here today.
As I mentioned to Ms. Rivers after she testified, this is
not an unusual situation that I have run against given the fact
that we had a marine veteran in Michigan just recently that was
highlighted in the media for his trials and tribulations
related to the fact that he was improperly listed as being
deceased a couple times, to the point of losing his Veterans
Affairs benefits; the Treasury Department shut down his bank
account; his credit score was ruined as well when he was trying
to purchase a house, and it took him several months to get
through that process. And so this is an anguishing issue for
many folks, and you mentioned, Mr. Brune, that about 9,000
individuals you believe each year are in this situation?
Mr. Brune. Correct, Senator.
Senator Peters. So my question is: How do they get on that
list? Of those 9,000, what is usually the event that is
triggering them getting on that list?
Mr. Brune. There are two primary events. One would be data
entry error and the second would be erroneous information by
the reporter, whoever that reporter might be.
Senator Peters. The reporter?
Mr. Brune. Correct, the individual who reports death. So we
get reports from family members, from doctors, as I mentioned,
also returned mail marked ``Deceased'' from the Postal Service.
We get reports from the Treasury and CMS as well.
Senator Peters. So a report from the Postal Service. You
are not getting a death certificate. You are having the Postal
Service saying, someone did not get their mail?
Mr. Brune. Correct. Returned mail marked as ``Deceased'' is
an unverified report and would need to verify that before we
took any action.
Senator Peters. So you would not just say, a person is not
collecting their mail, let us put them on the death list?
Mr. Brune. Correct. We would possibly suspend benefits, but
we would not terminate the benefit.
Senator Peters. How long does it take to fix these,
normally? Do you have any kind of analysis of those 9,000
individuals?
Mr. Brune. Well, the process is for an individual who is on
the death master file incorrectly to visit one of our offices,
provide evidence of their identity. We can do that through a
scheduled appointment so the individual does not have to wait.
And usually it takes an hour or two to complete.
Senator Peters. But the problem is that even if that is
done, then the information is not Proactively communicated to
the commercial vendors, banks, others that may want this
information, which I think Ms. Rivers was in that trouble. Is
there a way to do that proactively? Because otherwise, we are
just relying on the service to go back and constantly check the
list, and oftentimes, an individual does not know they are on
this list as well.
They just are having a situation like Ms. Rivers has, that
things are not going well, and even though there is seemingly
no explanation for it, and yet there is no proactive measures
on the part of the Social Security Administration to say, we
made a mistake. We have to try to fix it for this individual
because we know this individual is going to be going through an
awful lot of heartache.
Mr. Brune. Correct. The measure we take, Senator, is to
share the updated file the following week with the Department
of Commerce. So the mistake is corrected the subsequent week.
The record would be identified as being deleted from the death
master file that is shared with the Department of Commerce.
You asked specifically about the commercial entities. There
may be value in sharing the full death file, as the Ranking
Member and the Chairman have proposed in their legislation with
a do-not-pay portal and if commercial entities could use that
portal, they would have access to the information.
Senator Peters. Now, going to the, which I think is the
other fascinating part of this hearing, are the 6.5 million
people at 112 years old. Mr. O'Carroll, now, in your testimony,
you said these folks are not receiving Social Security
payments; they just simply still have a valid Social Security
number out there, and that there is no data in terms of date of
death.
At some point, these individuals probably received Social
Security checks and then they stopped getting Social Security.
Why does not that trigger something? If not picking up your
mail is enough to get you on the list, what stopped them, once
they stopped receiving a Social Security check, we can probably
assume they are no longer alive.
Mr. O'Carroll. Well, the interesting part, Senator Peters,
is that many of these are from the 1970s when people were
coming into SSA offices and saying a person had died who was
not getting benefits at the time, a family member, a widow,
children, or dependents like that, that is where a lot of these
records were created.
So the person did not have the benefit from SSA, was not of
record with SSA, and that is pretty much the crux the problem.
They are old records with little ways for SSA to catch it.
Senator Peters. Because they never were receiving a check--
--
Mr. O'Carroll. Correct.
Senator Peters [continuing]. To begin with. So is that why
it is the 112-year figure? What is the situation of 100-year-
old individuals and 105-year-old individuals and 110? Is there
something about 112?
Mr. O'Carroll. What happened was is that we had gotten word
from a financial institution that the two accounts were set up,
which is in my testimony. But anyway, at that point, our
auditors looked and they figured out what was the highest age
of record, and that is where we came up with 112. And as I
said, there are about 35 people in the world that are 112.
Senator Peters. But do you see these same kind of numbers
of someone who is 105 years old, a large number?
Mr. O'Carroll. Well, what is interesting on that one is, is
that what SSA had been doing and we do is that when a person
reached 100 years of age, they would reach out to try to verify
that the person was there. That was called the Centenarian
Project. We were getting fairly good information on that. We
were saving about $8 million a year by doing that.
I mentioned in my testimony--it would make more sense to
start taking a look at people who are not using Medicare for
long periods of time in that age group. So then we had two
criteria, the age and the fact that they were not seeing a
doctor. And in that group there, we are seeing about four or
five times better results than we were getting by just using
the age limit.
But yes, everybody is aware of that and we keep taking a
look. We have had different projects that we have worked with
SSA looking at, as an example, 90-year-olds.
Senator Peters. And where are we on the Medicare project?
How many of those records are--and what is the cutoff for
Medicare? How long without benefits of Medicare?
Mr. O'Carroll. We have been using 3 years on that one. That
seems fairly good. In fact, what we are looking at right now,
because it has been so successful, we are doing an audit,
taking a look at Medicaid and see if we can also identify
additional deceased people that way.
Senator Peters. Thank you so much.
Senator Johnson. Senator McCaskill.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCASKILL
Senator McCaskill. Thank you. Last year during a hearing on
this subject, I learned that we were selling these lists to
other government agencies, which is hard for me to wrap my arms
around that policy, and I think we were told by Ms. LaCanfora
that this was required by law. Is that correct?
Mr. Brune. That is correct, Senator. We are required to
seek reimbursement for our costs.
Senator McCaskill. So let us assume that we could do
something legislatively. Would you see any reason why we could
not put a secure website up with this information that was
properly encrypted and properly pass-coded that would share
this information? I mean, we have hundreds of millions of
dollars going out the door at other agencies and they are
trying to budget paying you for information.
I mean, all of this is being gathered in the public domain.
It seems bizarre to me that we are not focusing on a priority
of a policy that would make this information available to
others easily and at as little expense as possible since the
taxpayers are paying the bill no matter where this is
occurring.
Mr. Brune. Yes. We would agree and in our testimony, we
supported the goal of the Ranking Member's bill, also in the
President's Fiscal Year 2016 budget to make the full death file
available to the Do Not Pay Portal, which provides that a
complete set of records, over 100 million records, to all
Federal agencies for all Federal payments.
Senator McCaskill. Well, it would be great if we could get
that done. OK. Now, here is the other thing that really gets
me. If you get data in, you are putting it in the system and
selling it without verifying it if there is not an SSA
recipient, correct?
Mr. Brune. That is correct. We do not verify records for
non-beneficiaries. but we do not sell the information, we are
merely reimbursed for the cost of preparing the file.
Senator McCaskill. So you get a record and you put it in
the system for another agency to buy, but because it is not an
SSA recipient, you are not going to the trouble of verifying?
Mr. Brune. We have no program purpose to do so.
Senator McCaskill. So is it clearly delineated to them what
records are verified and what are not?
Mr. Brune. It is marked in our Numident as unverified
report.
Senator McCaskill. Now, are they, to your knowledge, maybe
the IG would know or maybe GAO would know, are these other
agencies then going and verifying? Mr. Bertoni.
Mr. Bertoni. No, I do not think there is any additional
verification. The agencies pay for a dataset. It might be an
annual set plus monthly updates or weekly updates. They are
getting information that they believe to be true and correct
and there is no additional verification.
Mr. Brune. Senator, I would add that in our distribution of
the file--in my statement, I clearly articulated the intent of
the file is for Social Security purposes. We know that because
it is aggregated across jurisdictions and it is comprehensive
for the most part, that it is of value to others. But we tell
folks right up front, it does not include every record, that we
cannot confirm the veracity of the file, and that they should,
in fact, verify it if they are going to use it for a business
purpose.
Senator McCaskill. Well, what if they wanted to pay you to
verify it? Could you not verify them all and then just charge
them for it? You are already charging them for it.
Mr. Brune. Under current law, we believe we are verifying
all the records that we should be verifying for our program
purpose, for those that do not----
Senator McCaskill. So the law would have to be changed in
order for you to verify everything?
Mr. Brune. Correct.
Senator McCaskill. No? Daniel says no.
Mr. Bertoni. I do not believe so. They have a pecking order
in terms of what the agency believes to be the most accurate
reports. Reports from States are deemed the most accurate. They
are pre-verified and those are deemed not to be--they have to
have a verification. There are also reports from family members
and funeral directors that are believed to be highly accurate,
that I believe the agency has decided, per policy, not to
verify. I do not think that is in the law.
Mr. Brune. That is agency policy, correct.
Senator McCaskill. OK.
Mr. Bertoni. Just one example.
Senator McCaskill. Have you figured out what it would cost
you to verify them and then recover those costs when you sell
them?
Mr. Brune. I would have to get back to you for the record
on that cost.\1\
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\1\ The information submitted by Mr. Brune appears in the Appendix
on page 101.
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Senator McCaskill. Would that not make sense if you are in
the business of verifying? So it seems like to me you guys are
doing this verification and you know what it costs you because
you are charging people for it, but you are not doing it--if
there is not an SSA recipient and then that agency is getting
it, which heightens the likelihood of an improper payment.
Mr. Brune. Senator, this boils down to a fiscal law
question. Essentially, the agency is not permitted to spend
trust fund dollars or a limited administrative expense account
on items that do not have a program purpose. And that is the
basis on which we do not verify non-beneficiary reports.
Senator McCaskill. I completely get that, but you
understand the common sense argument. Tell me you do.
Mr. Brune. I do.
Senator McCaskill. OK. Good.
Mr. Brune. We will get back to you on the costs.
Senator McCaskill. OK. I just got worried for a minute.
Senator Ayotte and I have a bill, Senator Coburn and I had a
bill. This is an agency, we call it, let me Google that for
you, because this is an agency that the vast majority of the
information that they are supposed to be distributing is easily
available online, and they are the distribution source for your
public death master file.
Have you all given some thought, if we get rid of the
National Technical Information Service (NTIS), which we should
because it is a waste of money, what your alternative
distribution method would be?
Mr. Brune. We have not considered an alternative
distribution method because at present, NTIS does serve as that
data clearinghouse for the Federal Government.
Senator McCaskill. And the money goes into a revolving fund
which keeps them in existence, which we get back to the
beginning which is, this is agency which has outgrown its
usefulness and purpose, and for some reason, we have a really
hard time shutting down agencies like that. So I am determined,
and I think most of my colleagues on this Committee share my
determination about this agency.
So I would think you should begin pricing out what NTIS is
making off selling your lists. Maybe you could use that money
to verify for the other agencies.
Mr. Brune. Understood.
Senator McCaskill. Thank you.
Senator Johnson. We will be supportive of that effort.
Senator Ayotte.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AYOTTE
Senator Ayotte. Yes. Let me just say that I completely,
wholeheartedly agree with my colleague, Senator McCaskill, on
this. So I wanted to ask, just to understand this information
sharing piece, in order for you to share information, it sounds
to me, because of the limitations that are put on what you can
do with regard to the trust fund, that we are going to need
some legislative action there to have a broader information
sharing across agencies, correct?
Mr. Brune. Senator, the response I have provided to Senator
McCaskill was relative to verifying records for which we did
not have a program purpose. But we would need additional
authority to do non-mission work, yes.
Senator Ayotte. But as I also understand it, that we are
also, as we look at this challenge that we are facing in terms
of the DMF list, this issue, we are also not sharing among
States, right? So do States share with us? I know they are
sharing with us in terms of vital records, we have heard, but
do we share with States what we know?
Mr. Brune. We do. We share all our death information with
those State agencies that have a responsibility for
administering federally funded benefits.
Senator Ayotte. Of any kind?
Mr. Brune. Yes.
Senator Ayotte. OK. And so, one of the things that just
seems, as I look at this whole thing, as we look, we are not
communicating amongst each other, and then there is also the
amount of money that is at stake here. A lot of us talk about
wanting to address sequester. We could do it if we got improper
payments to a much more reduced level.
These resources that we are talking about, whether it is to
defend the Nation or NIH or all the things that we would like
to do, I mean, this is very big money. And so, I am looking at
this thinking, How do we also not only share information with
each other, what steps do we need to take to verify it further?
And then there is a lot of publicly available information, it
seems like, we are leaving on the table to help verify for us.
I mean, I would love to get certainly Mr. O'Carroll and Ms.
Davis's impression. Is there not some publicly available
information that we are not necessarily cross-checking with?
Mr. O'Carroll. That is correct, Senator. What we did was an
audit a few years ago and in the audit, we went to SSA and we
looked at a sample of 58 records that were suspended showing
that no payment was going out for some reason of caution. And
then we went through the 58 and we found that 57 were deceased.
And the way we found it was, it was probably in about thirds.
For one-third of them, SSA had been able to find out about, had
the information in their records, and it was just a question of
cleaning it up.
And then for another one-third, we were able to get death
certificates from the States and other ways like that. And then
for the other third, we used other databases that were
available just to identify the person as deceased and be able
to get the information that way. So yes, I find third-party
databases are very useful.
Senator Ayotte. So do we need legislative proposals--in
order to incorporate information that is already available and
third-party information, and also when I heard Mr. O'Carroll's
example, I also think that apparently the States, what they are
doing, is submitting the vital statistics to the Social
Security Administration. Apparently it does not have the same
level of accuracy as it should, too.
So do you need legislative proposals to be able to consult
third-party information or is it a resource issue or is it all
of the above? And also, what is it that we need to do from the
States' perspective? If we knew that you could get the death
certificate for certain individuals, apparently their vital
records office would have not submitted that if it did not get
into your system properly.
Mr. Brune. Senator, two points. The dataset that Mr.
O'Carroll just mentioned, the 58 number holders in suspense,
those recommendations were just sent to the agency last Friday.
We believe that there are policy adjustments we can make to
look at third-party datasets, and we agreed with that
recommendation. We will be pursuing it.
The agency's position is that full funding of electronic
death registration would go a long way to ensuring the
integrity of these files. Many of the files that you mentioned
are in jurisdictions where our experience is they are not using
electronic death registration. Their paper processes are out of
date.
Funding these jurisdictions to move to Electronic Death
Registration would make the information more accurate because
electronic death registration verifies against Social Security
before the death certificate is issued, before a report of
death is made. And so, that would be the approach, I think.
That appropriation falls under the Health and Human Services
Department.
Senator Ayotte. Why is it that this has not been a bigger
priority of the Federal Government? I mean, this is a lot of
money that we are leaving on the table that is fraudulently
going out the door that could be used for real things that we
need to do? As I look at the big picture here, why have we not
made it a bigger priority?
I guess I would direct it to the Inspector General, Mr.
O'Carroll, and from your work that you have done, I would like
to hear your impressive GAO, Ms. Davis. Why is this not a
bigger priority? You have been working on these issues for
years and you have been coming to Congress and this is a huge
issue.
Mr. O'Carroll. Agreed, Senator. We are in a unique position
as the SSA OIG because we represent the Council of the
Inspectors General as liaison with OMB on this thing. I have to
say, there has been a lot more emphasis on identifying improper
payments, curbing improper payments, and probably the biggest
improvement is the Do Not Pay list, which is making all the
government agencies compare this information so that, as an
example, OPM will not be sending out a pension check to
somebody that another agency thinks is deceased.
And I guess the only other issue that I asked for some help
on, and I mentioned this before in another hearing, is that
data matching between agencies is handicapped in so many
different ways, where one agency is not allowed to provide its
data because of the Computer Matching Act.
And that is probably the biggest issue now, where one
person is receiving a benefit from one agency and then should
not be receiving a benefit from another agency. We cannot do
that kind of audit work.
I cannot match our data with, let us say, for example,
Department of Labor to find the people that are on worker's
compensation and are also getting disability benefits from SSA.
Or when they are disqualified for worker's compensation letting
SSA know that they have improved. So that type of data
matching, I think, would be extremely useful in trying to
prevent improper payments.
Senator Ayotte. My time is up, but just so I understand, is
that just a law change or it is a system like a computer system
change, meaning from the hardware, the fact that we have
agencies not communicating with each other?
Mr. O'Carroll. It is a law change and there is a bill out
there now that has included it.
Senator Ayotte. All right.
Senator Johnson. Senator Ernst, if you are ready.
Senator Ernst. Yes, thank you.
Senator Johnson. Just in the nick of time.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ERNST
Senator Ernst. Thank you, Senator Johnson. I appreciate it
and thank you, everyone, for your testimony today. I do
appreciate it. Bottom line, up front, this is a situation we
have to fix. I do not think anybody disagrees with that.
So what I would like to ask, Inspector General O'Carroll,
if you would please--what I will do, I will read this quote
that came from the management at SSA, and this was in response
to the IG's findings and recommendations. The recommendations
would create a significant manual and labor intensive workload
and provide no benefit to the administration of our programs.
I think we have talked about this. I heard some mention of
this. But do you feel an accurate and reliable death master
file is the responsibility of the SSA?
Mr. O'Carroll. The easy answer on that is yes, that I think
that any data that SSA is providing to the government, to the
public has to be accurate. That was pretty much the reason why
we identified the 6.5 million. When you are doing audits and
things like that, you are looking for large outliers and that
is what this group was, a large outlier.
So yes on that. I understand if you ask Sean, what he is
going to say is that none of them are getting benefits from SSA
and that SSA's primary responsibility is the benefit.
But my point is that, and I think a good reason for this
hearing, is that if there is the attention put on it by
Congress, that SSA needs resources or whatever it needs to fix
it, that is very important because as I said before, so many
other different benefits in the States, in the government, plus
voter registration and driver's licenses, everything else, all
depend on the Death Master File and this is the only thing that
is out there to prevent fraud.
Senator Ernst. Yes, thank you. I would agree and I think
this is a good start and yes, it is an easy answer to say yes.
But we do know now we need to move forward and correct the
deficiencies that are out there. There are so many improper
payments that are going out, not to mention some of the issues
that have been brought up with those not receiving payments,
but we also have fraudulent voter registrations, we have
illegal use of numbers for employment or for government
assistance, so many other issues that come with this.
I do believe that you have delivered around 70
recommendations to the Social Security Administration over the
past number of years. Can you please tell us, how many of those
have been implemented over the years?
Mr. O'Carroll. Yes. Of the 70 that we have recommended--
well, first, there are two steps to that. The first step is an
agreement, and we are getting about 93-percent agreement from
SSA. But out of that 70, probably about 50 have been enacted.
In fairness, some of them, as Sean just mentioned, were in
the last 6 months. We have issued maybe four or five audits
with a lot of different recommendations that they have not
really had time enough to implement. But as an example we watch
that very closely. We go back every few years and take a look
to see if they agreed with something, whether or not it was
implemented, and if it was not, we bring it to their attention.
Senator Ernst. And then with these recommendations and any
others that are coming out, can any of you please to the panel,
really give an overall cost estimate, man hours, additional
time, any of those parameters that might be necessary to make
sure that corrections were implemented?
Mr. Brune. Senator, the recommendations that Mr. O'Carroll
just mentioned that we agree with, we are committed to making
those changes within our appropriation. I did want to highlight
that several of the Inspector General's recommendations have,
in fact, improved our process. We find high value in following
the advice that the Inspector General has given us.
I did want to close by underscoring the fact, as we stated
earlier in Mr. O'Carroll's testimony as well as mine, the 6.5
million old records that Mr. O'Carroll looked at identified
zero improper payments. In totality, death information for
Social Security's purposes is very accurate. Less than one
percent of our benefit over-payments are resulting from death.
Our processes have improved tremendously over the years. In
the last decade, our processes have grown substantially more
robust. We are getting more accurate information more timely
and we are able to intercept over 50 million benefit dollars
from becoming over-payments before they even get issued. So $50
million a month does not go out the door because of the
accuracy and timeliness of the death reports we receive.
Senator Ernst. And that is a good thing. However, you
cannot dispute that there are still 6.5 million numbers that
exist out there, and even though they may not be drawing
benefits on those numbers, it is still an issue whether it is
voter registration or some other fraudulent use of a number. So
that is a concern.
Mr. Brune. Correct. And I was just talking to Mr. O'Carroll
before the hearing. We have committed, in our audit response,
to look at those records before the end of the fiscal year--to
do a full analysis of what can be used from those records to
add dates of death or a death indicator to our database.
Senator Ernst. Very good. Mr. Brune, if you were a lawmaker
for a day, what would your recommendation be? Just bottom line,
very easy. What would your recommendation be to this Congress?
Mr. Brune. Fund all States to use electronic death
reporting. The adoption rate has been steady since 2002 when we
started. We only have 37 States and two jurisdictions. We need
all States, all jurisdictions in every State using electronic
death reporting. It is the most effective, accurate report we
receive.
Senator Ernst. OK. I do appreciate that. Thank you so much
for your testimony today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Carper [presiding]. You are welcome. Thank you.
Would you say that again? [Laughter.]
Senator Ernst. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Carper. I told the staff, please do not tell him I
did this. I caught myself. I want to go back, if I could, the
question I am going to ask, similar to what Senator Ernst just
asked, and that I started asking earlier Mr. Bertoni. If there
is one thing, only one thing we were to do, what would it be?
You are the only one I got to pick on. Senator Ernst just said
it, came back and sort of followed up on that, which is good,
but I am going to ask it before we finish this one thing.
I want to come back to the portion of your testimony, Mr.
Mader, where you went through a series of items, series of
ideas, I think, are contained in the President's 2016 budget.
And a number of them involved program integrity. Some of them
involved funding, providing resources for the IRS. Would you
just step through those for us again? And I am going to ask our
other panelists to respond briefly to those, which ones they
think make sense.
Mr. Mader. I think, Senator, we touched on EITC. There are
a series of program integrity initiatives across HHS and, in
fact, in the current budget in 2015, actually, we were
fortunate to receive funding for one of those. There are
program integrity initiatives across DOL and I think they have
demonstrated, in a pilot program with the States--because
recognizing that unemployment insurance is a block grant to the
State--but they have demonstrated using New York State as the
key to doing some very creative analytics, and again in 2016,
we have asked for continued funding of those initiatives.
So I think across in my testimony, there are about half a
dozen that we mentioned, and that actually was probably the top
six. We could provide a few more for the record. But those are,
I think, going back to the Senator's comment, I think that if
there was one thing I could ask for, maybe two, is get to
Treasury the full death master file because that is the place
that we are running all of the civilian payments past, and
having the most accurate set of data would be a real benefit.
So that is the one ask.
The other ask is--and I strongly believe that in order to
save money, we need to make an investment, and a 16 investment
in those half a dozen or so program integrities, I believe, and
I think the Administration strongly believes, that we will see
benefits in driving not only the rate, but the total amount of
improper payments down if we are allowed to make those kinds of
enhancements.
Senator Carper. OK. Thank you. Mr. Brune, Mr. O'Carroll,
any comments on what we just heard from David, especially with
that first request?
Mr. Brune. Senator Carper, I believe that funding EDR would
be the first best step as all that data, hopefully, eventually,
pending your bill, goes into Do Not Pay. We want to make sure
it is as accurate as possible on the Social Security
Administration's end. We are going to certainly take a look at
those very old records, see how we can make sure they are as
accurate as possible. But prospectively, getting all
jurisdictions to use electronic death registration would be the
way to go.
Senator Carper. In terms of the timing, I seem to recall 5
months. I might be confusing the testimony I have heard. There
is a delay, we need 5 months until late October. Can someone
help me with this? Am I imagining this?
Mr. O'Carroll. The delay on the release you are talking
about, Senator?
Senator Carper. I think so.
Mr. O'Carroll. Yes. One of the bills that came out of
Committee is that it will be 3 years before death data goes
public. And we applaud it because it was based on one of our
audit findings, that if you give extra time to a person who has
been reported dead, they can come into SSA and get it fixed
before it goes out into the public. And I have to say, that is
probably the best thing that has happened with death reporting.
Senator Carper. OK. Anybody else want to give us a killer
idea, maybe something that has already been mentioned once or
twice, maybe not?
Mr. Bertoni. I think the Improper Payments Information Act,
the fact that we have Do Not Pay establishes metrics that holds
agencies accountable. I think when you are measuring that, it
is going to hold agencies accountable to make it a priority. I
also think the electronic verification at the State level, I
think it is proven that those death reports are highly
accurate, and moving in that direction, I would agree with Mr.
Brune that that is prudent.
And I think it would allow them, SSA, to really look at
their other verification processes and perhaps move some
resources over to those other areas. And I go again to
verification of reports from family members and funeral homes.
We looked at some data of 82 corrections in 2012 and 2013, and
we pulled a small case sample of 46 cases. In 35 percent of
those cases, those folks were, in fact, alive, but they were
erroneously----
Senator Carper. What percent?
Mr. Bertoni. 35 percent of the 45 cases that we looked at,
they were erroneously placed in the file. And, if when you look
at the source of those reports, it was family members and
funeral directors. Those are typically regarded as being highly
accurate and not subject to verification. So if you free up
resources, that they do not have to, focus on the States who
are verifying electronically, perhaps you can look at some of
these other policies and do maybe do some additional
verifications.
Senator Carper. Ms. Davis, I have not picked on you very
much. How about sharing something with us?
Ms. Davis. Well, if I could look at a bit higher level, at
the overall improper payments estimate this past year, which
was almost $125 billion, there were actually three drivers of
the increase of $19 billion and those three drivers were
Medicare, Fee-for-Service, Medicaid, and the Earned Income Tax
Credit program.
When you look at those increases individually, Medicare,
Fee-for-Service was almost $10 billion, Medicaid a little over
$3 billion, and then the Earned Income Tax Credit program was a
little over $3 billion as well. You look at those and you have
65 percent of your entire estimate of improper payments.
What is of concern is that these programs, in particular
the health care programs, are growing. For example, HHS has
estimated or predicted that over the next 3 years, that the
Medicare and the Medicaid programs are going to expand program
outlays by about 8 percent annually over the next 3 years.
So if you take that and you compare it or analyze it
against the rate increases, there are some concerns, definite
concerns. Again, to be a little bit more specific, the rate for
the Fee-for-Service program was 10.1 percent last year. It is
now 12.7 percent. The Medicaid also went up almost a whole
percentage point.
The Earned Income Tax Credit, over the past 5 years, has
been running about 25 percent. Last year it was a little over
24 and now it is over 27. So if you look at these programs and
the facts that the rates, error rates in these programs are
increasing, and the compound that with a possibility that
program outlays are going to increase, it is going to be
difficult to get a handle on these overall governmentwide
improper payments.
Senator Carper. Great. Thanks so much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Johnson [presiding]. Thanks for holding down the
fort here. Not only is our Ranking Member highly interested in
this issue, but he is also a pretty good sprinter. I saw him in
the hallway. I have only got a couple questions left. I really
want to kind of explore the EDRs and the differences between
the States and the data that comes from those.
I do not know who is the best person to talk to about that.
Is that you, Mr. O'Carroll?
Mr. O'Carroll. I will let Sean do the first one.
Chairman Johnson. Do you have a stats in terms of the
accuracy of the information coming from States with EDR versus
those that do not have EDR?
Mr. Brune. Yes, we do, and there are really two dimensions,
both of which I think are important to us and of value in the
conversation about improper payments. One dimension is
timeliness of reporting, and within the EDR arena, we average a
report within 5 days of the date of death and within 24 hours
of when the State becomes aware of it. That is very timely.
Chairman Johnson. Again, those are in the exact form that
you want it in, correct?
Mr. Brune. Correct.
Chairman Johnson. It totally matches your database?
Mr. Brune. Correct. And then for the record,\1\ I could
provide you what amount of those inquiries do not match when
they send us a name and SSN combination, what does not match
before they report. Now, I want to make sure that I mention
that process is that the first step before anything is sent to
us is the name and SSN match. If that occurs, then we will get
the rest of the information. And if it does not occur, it goes
back to the reporter in order to double check and make sure
they have the correct information, that they did not mis-key
something.
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\1\ The information submitted by Mr. Brune appears in the Appendix
on page 102.
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Chairman Johnson. So again, from the States that do not
have EDR, are you also getting those from their offices of
vital statistics or is that where you are getting things from
financial institutions, Postal, I mean, all the others?
Mr. Brune. All of the others. And we could get multiple
reports, Senator, even in an EDR State, and it is important to
recognize that in those States that have adopted electronic
registration, every jurisdiction within the State does not use
it equally. And so, some jurisdictions, counties, or
municipalities may be at 100 percent utilization, others might
have a very low rate or not use it at all. And so, there is
much more work to be done.
And part of that, I think, is the reflection of the fact
that at the local level, these records were maintained in
different formats and the quality of that data varies.
Chairman Johnson. So you do not have the localities within
a State submitting the information to some kind of central data
center and then have those electronic records forwarded to
Social Security? You are getting these from multiple sources
within a State?
Mr. Brune. It is up to the State how they send us the
information. Usually it does come from a State bureau of vital
statistics, but how those entities are organized at the State
level varies.
Chairman Johnson. But again, so the 37 States you get that
from, they come from a centralized vital statistics office
within the State? They may be getting the information from
multiple sources, but they accumulate it and there is just one
contact for Social Security within those 37 States?
Mr. Brune. That is generally true, but it can vary
depending on the State.
Chairman Johnson. So what has been the hang-up in the 13
other States? I mean, just resistance? Is it funding? I mean,
the other 37 States, do they fund their electronic death
records or registries themselves?
Mr. Brune. I would say that funding is definitely part of
the equation and I think that some States recognize that they
have more work to do, that the State of their records would
require a lot of effort in order for them to get the records to
a point where they could send it to us reliably in the
electronic format that we request.
Chairman Johnson. OK. I am all for States' rights, but this
might be something that we maybe need to work on. Ms. Davis, I
did want to talk about exactly how we calculate total number of
improper payments and also verify. My staff is telling me it is
about 90 percent of those improper payments really are over-
payments, correct? Or is it about that? What is your
information in terms of over-payments versus under-payments,
because we talk about improper. What is the mix?
Ms. Davis. We have not done recent work to determine the
actual mix. I will say, though, that the majority are over-
payments, and there are a number of items, of course, that are
classified as improper payments because there is insufficient
documentation.
Chairman Johnson. The calculation of the 1-point or $124.7
billion, that is all through statistical sampling, correct?
Ms. Davis. Correct, statistical. I mean, let me qualify
that statement. It is statistically valid sampling
methodologies, but OMB, the OMB Director can approve an
alternate methodology.
Chairman Johnson. OK. Well, those are my final questions. I
guess I would like to just go over the panel if there is a
particular point you want to make, one point relatively brief,
to close out the hearing. I will start with you, Mr. Bertoni.
Mr. Bertoni. I would say to the extent that the DMF and the
Do Not Pay initiative, at some point, will be made to the full
file. I think you are running out of time. Every day as more
States come onto the electronic system, there are going to be
fewer and fewer records in there and that file is going to
become less useful and potentially less accurate.
So if that is going to happen, it should be concurrent or
in tandem with increasing the accuracy of death data in
general.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you. Mr. Brune.
Mr. Brune. Senator, we are fully committed to maintaining
as accurate death data as we can. We are dependent upon the
States to report that information. We think fully funding the
electronic death registration is the first step to that. We
also support aim of the Ranking Member's bill to make all our
death information available through the Do Not Pay portal, and
would be happy to provide technical assistance on that bill.
Chairman Johnson. OK. Appreciate that. Mr. O'Carroll.
Mr. O'Carroll. Chairman, once again, my biggest one is that
we asked for an exemption to the Computer Matching and Privacy
Protection Act for IGs. But by the same token, it should go to
the IGs and the parent agency. So as an example, when we do an
audit and we can find that there is an issue of one agency
making payments when another agency is not making payments, we
can then have the parent agencies make those matches.
Chairman Johnson. OK. Thank you. Mr. Mader.
Mr. Mader. I think supporting the various program integrity
initiatives in the President's budget.
Chairman Johnson. Thank you. Ms. Davis. By the way, I
really appreciate these brief statements. Ms. Davis.
Ms. Davis. The improper payments legislation requires
Inspector Generals to perform annual reviews of compliance with
the criterion on IPERA and there are a number of issues that
they have identified over the last several years. Implementing
the recommendations that are made by these Inspectors General
would go far in helping to reduce improper payments.
Chairman Johnson. OK. Well, again, I just want to thank all
the witnesses for your thoughtful testimony, your thoughtful
answers to our questions. Ms. Rivers, thank you for sharing
your story, and again, this Committee is dedicated to making
sure this is not just a hearing, but something comes out of
this. So we want to work very closely with all the agencies so
we can, again, prevent the type of situation that Ms. Rivers
has had to deal with.
The hearing record will remain open for 15 days, until
March 31t, at 5 p.m. for the submission of statements and
questions for the record. This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 6:08 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
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