@gammanu95 "Also, as a matter of governmental efficiency, why aren't MEs or funeral workers expected to send in paperwork verifying their identification of the deceased to the federal government?"
When my wife passed away on 21-Feb-2024, the funeral home contacted SS/Medicare and her Supplemental Part D and they did quickly drop her. I have no doubts that low-end funeral homes don't do this, and they should be dealt with. When people are over say 100, verifying is reasonable.
When my wife was on SS Disability in 2004 when she had Small Cell Lung Cancer, she was on SSD for 1 year. When she went back to work, we notified SSA and they said "we keep people on for 6 months in case they have a relapse." She just put the money in a saving account in case SS wanted it back. Why? While she was SSD, SSA after the first 6 months said they did a review and were over-paying and wanted some back. They also said they "could" do another review.
SSA is seriously jacked-up. While on SSD, SSA put her on Medicare A/B. We had coverage and didn't want it, my insurance covered her. We couldn't get her off. After she was back to work, SSA left her on Part A and never took her off even though she didn't need. Oracle brought her back after a 1 year, and put her back in her same role. 5 years later her role was off-shored and she was laid-off. Her MS was at the point where it was good to stop working even though she worked from home; actually, she started WFH in 2000 when Oracle wanted some people set-up at home in case of storms or disasters. When she was laid-off, she went on SSD for MS for like 3 years. When she turned 65, she just rolled onto SS. And her Medicare card showed her Part A was "2004", even though she never used it.
I worked with an analyst who worked at MITRE with SSA after he graduated from MIT with a MS in CompSci in the late 1970s. We worked together in 2007-2009. He said "you think SS is fucked now - it was back in 1980 so imagine how much more fucked it is now."
"There should be some process to verify the eligibility of anyone receiving any government assistance no less frequently than annually."
Remember back with Clinton when he put work requirements on Welfare recipients? A lot managed to get jobs to get off Food Stamps, and many kept Medicaid. Obama quickly reversed all that and people piled on really fast.
My experience: my wife had MS since 2001 (when she was diagnosed.) We had a Long Term Care policy she got at Oracle. Each year a nurse would come by to do a review to ensure she still qualified for coverage. There is no cure for MS, and each year she slowly degraded; from cane, to walker to powerchair to slow dementia. They do the same for para/quads, everyone no matter they verify.
SS Disability is a huge corrupt mess. sure, a lot are disabled and should be covered. However, they need to be validated annually. My wife use to watch Judge Judy (I despised that show!) A lot of people on there were is SSD, and Judy would call them out when it was clear they shouldn't be. "Trust BUT Verify."