Illinois Paid Dead Residents $16 Million In Public Aid Over 2 Years
By Margaret Paulson in News on Jul 23, 2015 5:50PM
Chicago's dead have long been presumed to vote in local elections—and until this week, some of them have been collecting millions in public aid.
Gov. Bruce Rauner signed a bill into law Tuesday that will prevent the Illinois Department of Public Health from issuing public aid to dead people, perplexing those of us who didn't realize this was even a thing.
House Bill 3311 requires the department to do a monthly review of its public aid recipients, cross-checking with electronic death records in order to swiftly cancel benefits of anyone determined to have died, and deactivate LINK cards so they aren't abused by the living.
The bill was introduced in the House in late February by Representative Dwight Kay (R) after Auditor General William Holland determined that $3.7 million in medical services was paid out to more than 1,000 dead people in 2014. If that seems ludicrous, consider that the state actually overpaid a whopping $12.3 million to nearly 3,000 dead people in 2013.
Assuming we’re talking actual dead people whose relatives are scamming the system —and not zombies—the question of how this oversight even happened is still relevant. According to the Herald & Review Springfield Bureau, state officials said the oversight is related to an antiquated computer system.
Governments are notoriously slow on the uptake with new technology, so it’s likely that the new review system won’t be the quick fix we want it to be. Still, it’s an issue lawmakers on both sides of the aisle can finally get behind—cracking down on welfare fraud.
Other states have dealt with this issue as well. A 2013 audit in Massachusetts found nearly $2.5 million being paid out to more than 1,000 dead people between 2010 and 2012, and another $15 million in suspicious benefit spending. Also in 2013, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder passed a law similar to Illinois’ law, requiring monthly checks to ensure welfare recipients were actually still among the living.