Letter to the Editor: Dead People Get Lots of Other Entitlement Benefits

Re: “Maryland Medicaid pays dead people,” Local Editorial, Dec. 13 

The Examiner noted that millions of dollars were wasted by the state of Maryland in fraudulent Medicaid payments for dead people — such as payments to a nursing home that began 11 months after an individual died — because Maryland ignored state and federal death records. 

Dead people also have received countless millions in benefits under other programs, such as food stamps and the $800 billion stimulus package. The Social Security Administration sends millions of dollars to recipients who are also dead. 

Sadly, this is government as usual. As James Bovard recently noted in the Wall Street Journal, when some states attempted to prevent fraud in the food stamp program, they were thwarted by the Obama administration, which responded “by cracking down on state governments’ antifraud measures.”