Illinois Still Paying For Health Care For the Dead

The old saying goes that in Illinois the dead vote. Apparently now they receive health care as well.

According to the Chicago Tribune, a whole lot of our our tax dollars were doled out for "services" performed on those no longer among the living:

A report from state Auditor General William Holland released Thursday found $3.7 million was paid for medical care for about 1,100 people who died. The report found nearly 6,000 people were still marked as eligible for medical services despite being listed as dead elsewhere in state or federal records.

Think that sounds bad? The unbelievable news is that the problem was even worse the year before:

The new report comes after Holland found the state had overpaid $12.3 million for medical care to dead people the year before. The 2013 figures affected 2,850 deceased individuals.

In the course of the review, auditors also discovered nearly 6,000 additional dead individuals who were in the system as being eligible for medical services. I guess we can be thankful they didn't require any health care in the past 12 months.

A Department of Healthcare and Family services spokesman says they expect to recover from insurance companies nearly all of the money that was spent. Unanswered is the administrative and personnel costs that were needed to address the situation. And, of course, how difficult can it be to scrub the dead from the Medicaid eligibility list.