JUST ABOUT ANYONE CAN GET MEDICARE BENEFITS

The federal government is wasting tens of millions of dollars annually by paying felons and fugitives Medicare and Medicaid benefits they aren't entitled to under federal law.

The problem, according to a federal investigation, is that program administrators aren't checking law enforcement records to determine the status of benefit recipients. The law prohibits most prisoners from receiving Medicare and Medicaid payments, and fugitive felons along with probation and parole violators are barred from getting Supplementary Security Income meant for needy individuals who are aged, blind or disabled.

Had federal employees done the job they are paid to do and checked law enforcement records, they easily would have discovered the benefits were going to people barred from receiving them. The task isn't that hard, because investigators had no difficulty coming up with the names of thousands of recipients who should not have been paid benefits.

This kind of wastefulness is incomprehensible under an already strained Social Security program.