U.S. benefits paid to 1,200 dead vets

WASHINGTON The Veterans Affairs Department has paid benefits tomore than 1,200 deceased veterans, including about 100 dead a decadeor more, the General Accounting Office says. The agency pegs thepotential annual loss from the erroneous payments at $5.7 million.

Auditors for the congressional investigating agency said thedepartment could have reduced the erroneous payments by matching VAbenefit payment files with death information maintained by the SocialSecurity Administration.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Edward J. Derwinski, agreeing withthe GAO's findings, said the department intended to follow thatprocedure.

The GAO, in a report to the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee,said, "We found that in April, 1989, VA paid compensation or benefitpayments for 1,212 veterans whom Social Security Administrationrecords reported had died at least four months earlier.

"About 100 had been dead 10 years or more."

Veterans Affairs pays out more than $14.7 billion a year indisability compensation and pension benefits to more than 2.8 millionveterans and nearly 1 million surviving spouses and other dependents.

The GAO said the department has relied on voluntary reporting ofdeaths as a basis for ending benefits.

The Social Security Administration goes much further, however,receiving reports of deaths from many sources and buying deathcertificate information from states.

The congressional agency said that by matching VA's benefitpayment file with Social Security files containing information on 39million deaths, it identified 1,212 veterans who were sent benefitsand were reported dead. Erroneous payments to these veterans'accounts could amount to $5.7 million annually, it said.