Category: Uncategorized

BY: Ali Meyer
October 4, 2016 12:32 pm

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services paid $9.3 million in benefits to illegal immigrants in 2013 and 2014, according to an audit from the agency’s inspector general.

“Medicare benefits are generally allowable when rendered to a beneficiary whom the Social Security Administration has determined to be a U.S. citizen or U.S. national,” the audit explains. “Medicare does not pay for services rendered to beneficiaries who are unlawfully present on the date of service.”

Laws governing the agency require it to ensure that payments for Medicare services are not made to individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States. The agency is required to take steps to prevent improper payments from occurring and recoup improper payments if they are made.

“[The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] had policies and procedures to ensure that payments were not made for Medicare services rendered to unlawfully present beneficiaries in accordance with Federal requirements, but it did not always follow those policies and procedures,” the audit said.

The agency is able to determine whether or not beneficiaries are lawfully present by obtaining information from the Social Security Administration.

“When CMS’s data systems did not indicate until after a claim had been processed that a beneficiary was unlawfully present, CMS had policies and procedures to detect and recoup payment for Medicare services, but it did not follow them,” the audit said.

The audit found that in 2013 and 2014, the agency paid out 14,530 claims totaling $9,267,392 in Medicare payments for 481 illegal immigrants.

“When Medicare has paid health care providers for services rendered to beneficiaries who are subsequently determined to have been unlawfully present at the time of services, Medicare requirements state that those improper payments should be recouped,” the audit states.

Andy Slavitt, acting administrator at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said that the agency will attempt to recoup the payments.

“CMS is committed to making sure that improper payments are not made for health care services provided to unlawfully present beneficiaries,” Slavitt said. “CMS will review the overpayments referred by [inspector general] and identify overpayments greater than or equal to $1,000.”

“CMS will attempt to recoup these overpayments,” he said. “At the conclusion of this collection effort, CMS will perform a cost-benefit analysis to determine if CMS should pursue similarly situated overpayments in the future.”

BY: Joe Schoffstall
October 4, 2016 1:40 pm

Dozens of ineligible aliens who have been removed from the voter rolls in the city of Philadelphia, Pa., have cast ballots in recent elections, according to a new report from an election watchdog group.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation, an Indiana-based nonprofit that litigates to protect election integrity, released a report on Tuesday detailing voter rolls in Philadelphia. The information was collected from public records requests made through the National Voter Registration Act.

The group found that from 2013 to 2015, 86 registrations were cancelled in Philadelphia because the registrant was not a United States citizen. Of the cancelled registrants, 40 aliens from the city have voted in at least one election, the report stated.

“The report only details aliens who requested to be removed from the rolls,” PILF said. “No procedure exists to systematically scan voter rolls to detect aliens and election officials do not use data from the federal SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) database to scan for illegal registrations by non-citizens.”

The group also discovered thousands of felons remain on the voter rolls despite having to be removed once incarcerated.
“This means that poll books listing eligible voters will contain the names of ineligible registrants in the November election,” the group stated. “By law, lists of eligible voters are to be kept accurate and current—they must only contain eligible voters.”

The Public Interest Legal Foundation sued the city of Philadelphia in April for refusing to provide information on non-citizen voters. The number of registered voters within the city have for years nearly exceeded the number who are eligible to vote.
“Clean rolls are the most important ingredient for clean elections,” said J. Christian Adams, president and general counsel of the Public Interest Legal Foundation. “This report shows that voter fraud exists in Philadelphia and federal and state law enforcement officials should enforce the law. Otherwise voter fraud will be encouraged.”

Adams testified in front of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives State Government Committee on Tuesday detailing his findings.

The Philadelphia City Commissioners did not return a request for comment on its voter rolls by press time.

The Philadelphia report comes on the heels of a report from the group that found thousands of ineligible aliens on voter rolls within the state of Virginia.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation found 1,046 aliens who were illegally registered to vote out of the small sample of eight Virginia counties who responded to their public records requests.

“The problem is most certainly exponentially worse because we have no data regarding aliens on the registration rolls for the other 125 Virginia localities,” the group said. “Even in this small sample, when the voting history of this small sample of alien registrants is examined, nearly 200 verified ballots were cast before they were removed from the rolls. Each one of them is likely a felony.”

http://freebeacon.com/issues/report-ineligible-aliens-voted-philadelphia-recent-years/