Congressman Cohen: 60 Minutes Highlights Need to Reduce Social Security Fraud by Modernizing Vital Records

[WASHINGTON, DC] – Sunday’s 60 Minutes shed light on a growing problem that Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-09) has worked to address for several years, the archaic state record-keeping systems that contribute, along with inaccurate reports from other sources, to errors in Social Security’s so-called “death master file,” which most federal agencies and private firms rely on to limit payments and other services. For five years, Congressman Cohen has called for funding to modernize the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS), which would improve timely reporting and reduce errors that cost American taxpayers billions in unnecessary and often fraudulent government benefit payments as well as ruin the lives of the citizens erroneously declared deceased in the master file each year.

“Accurate and efficient electronic reporting of vital records is critical to protecting taxpayers from paying for fraudulent benefit payments,” said Congressman Cohen. “Erroneous record keeping can also cause significant, long-lasting frustration and hardship for innocent Americans trying to live their lives. It is long past time for our nation to modernize these record-keeping systems to protect taxpayers and prevent harm, and I hope my colleagues will join me in seeking the funding needed to make it happen.”

The Social Security Administration (SSA) currently believes there to be more than 6 million Americans who are 112 years of age or older, simply because the SSA does not have a record of death. Despite the overwhelming majority having unquestionably passed away, these 6 million names remain eligible for certain government benefits, including Social Security and farm subsidy payments. These payments cost taxpayers billions while allowing criminals significant opportunities to defraud the government. It is likely that many of these deaths occurred prior to the mid-1980s, when the SSA began to receive reports of death from state vital records agencies.

Additionally, countless Americans are erroneously declared deceased each year, making them ineligible for government services and causing financial institutions to cut off access to their savings and other accounts as well as their credit and debit cards. As 60 Minutes noted, in some cases erroneous records have led to the arrest of clearly-living citizens accused of stealing their own identities. Living citizens who have been declared deceased often have a nearly impossible task to maintain a normal life, as even if they are able to get the error fixed in federal records, private records based on them are not always synchronized to those updates.

Congressman Cohen has requested additional NVSS funding to support states and territories as they implement and improve electronic death registration systems (EDRS), which provides more accurate, timely, and secure data for use in monitoring our nation’s health and reducing waste, fraud, and abuse in federal benefits programs.

The text of the Congressman’s latest letter to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, which is currently being circulated to his Congressional colleagues for signatures, follows:

Dear Chairman Kingston and Ranking Member DeLauro,

We write in support of adequate funding for the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) at the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) in the FY 2015 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriation bill, as well as to request the inclusion of accompanying report language. Specifically, we request that the Subcommittee provide $5 million to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) in order to modernize the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS). This funding will support states and territories as they implement and improve electronic death registration systems (EDRS). EDRS will provide more accurate, timely, and secure data for use in monitoring our nation’s health and reducing waste, fraud, and abuse in federal benefits programs.

NVSS provides data on important life events including births and deaths, data that enable us to monitor prevalence of disease and overall health status, develop programs to improve public health, and evaluate the effectiveness of those interventions. Vital statistics tell us what we know about teenage pregnancy, racial and socioeconomic disparities in infant mortality, and pregnancy-related deaths. These data help us measure the impact of health insurance, access to care and prenatal care on birth outcomes and monitor deaths due to injury, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and other conditions.

High quality and comprehensive data provide the foundation on which to build effective public health programs. We greatly appreciate your leadership in providing sustained funding for the NCHS in past years. It is due in large part to this support that nearly all states and territories have moved from the older 1989 birth certificate to the revised 2003 Standard Certificate of Birth, which is a much more robust source of public health data. Now we need to focus on the importance of completing the EDRS transition. For death registration, 44 jurisdictions are using EDRS as of March 2015. The implementation of EDRS is in progress in four vital records jurisdictions, including Tennessee, Massachusetts, Mississippi, and Colorado (expected to go live in March), while North Carolina is in the planning stages. Nevertheless, even in states with an EDRS, most states continue to rely to some extent on hybrid drop to paper records, a practice that compromises the accuracy, timeliness, interoperability, and security of these data and the records themselves.

In addition to the funding requested above, we also urge you to adopt the below report language.

Modernizing the Vital Statistics Infrastructure.—The Committee understands that not all states and territories have implemented electronic death registration systems. The Committee provides the National Center for Health Statistics $5 million to support states in modernizing their infrastructure to collect these data electronically. Electronic death registration systems will provide more accurate, timely, and secure death data for use in monitoring our nation’s health and reducing waste, fraud, and abuse in federal benefits programs.

This allocation of funding will lead to vast improvements in data collection and further enable us to better compare critical information on a local, state, regional, and national basis. Without these funds, a potential erosion of state data infrastructure and lack of standardized data could result in gaps in critical public health information and may have severe and lasting consequences on our ability to appropriately assess and address critical health needs. At a time when the country is moving forward with groundbreaking health care reform initiatives, the vital statistics collected by NVSS are critically needed to track and evaluate the changes that may result

Sincerely,