EXCLUSIVE: Watchdog Sounds Alarm On Hundreds Of Millions In Medicaid Payments To ‘Walking Dead’ Enrollees

A new report from the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) exposes the widespread problem of deceased individuals on Medicaid rolls and the taxpayer dollars wasted year after year as a result.

The report, obtained first by the Daily Caller News Foundation, warns that billions of taxpayer dollars may be wasted each year on people who no longer qualify for Medicaid benefits or have died. It calls for common-sense reforms — such as regular cross-checks of state and federal data — which the group says will restore integrity to the program.

“Most people have heard about dead people voting, but most people have no clue how many dead people are on the welfare rolls,” Jonathan Bain, senior research fellow at the FGA and author of the report, told the DCNF. “Whether voter rolls or welfare rolls, names of the deceased create a magnet for fraud and in the case of welfare fraud, it’s a quarter of a billion-dollar problem.”

“States have not only a fiscal, but a moral responsibility to clean up the books and get fraud and abuse out of Medicaid,” Bain added.

Welfare Walking Dead Paper 11-13-25 by melissanewsham

The report, titled “The Welfare Walking Dead,” cited an Office of the Inspector General (OIG) audit that found that more than 450,000 Medicaid payments totaling $249 million were made on behalf of deceased individuals between 2009 and 2019. Some payments were even made for people who had died as far back as 1981.

More recently, a Louisiana audit found in August that the agency overseeing the state’s Medicaid benefits paid out nearly $10 million for benefits to more than 1,000 people who had died over the last several years.

The main problem is that most states failed to routinely identify and process enrollees’ death records, despite the data being readily available, according to the FGA. Some states in the audit had inadequate policies and procedures and did not identify deceased enrollees through their monthly review process, while others did not collaborate with agencies that maintain death records at all.

In addition to payments made on behalf of deceased enrollees, roughly one in five Medicaid dollars is spent improperly, costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars each year, according to the report. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, however, places the estimate lower.

The FGA report comes as Medicaid spending has become a flashpoint in Congress, with Republicans seeking to rein in costs for the program, which has ballooned by 51% since 2019.

Most notably, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump in July, estimates over $1 trillion in savings from reforms primarily targeting funding loopholes, nonworking able-bodied enrollees, and more frequent eligibility checks.

Data obtained by the FGA through Freedom of Information Act requests show that 62% of non-elderly, able-bodied individuals on Medicaid did not work.

“Medicaid was never intended to become a catch-all safety net for able-bodied adults,” said Bain. “It was designed as a safety net for the truly needy: children, seniors, and individuals with disabilities.”

“Now, not only do tens of millions of able-bodied adults benefit from the welfare program, fraudsters are using the names of dead people to drain even more resources away from those who need them,” he added.

Democrats, meanwhile, have made Medicaid a campaign centerpiece ahead of the midterm elections, arguing that GOP proposals threaten Americans’ healthcare coverage.

While federal reforms have been implemented, the report argues that states must take stronger action to address the problem.

Cross-referencing Medicaid rolls with death records, tax filings, and incarceration data, as well as better coordination and information sharing between agencies, is a straightforward and effective solution, the report states. It also called for regular audits and for ending automatic renewals and pre-filled forms, requiring individuals to confirm their eligibility each year rather than have it renewed automatically.

“While the problem is massive, the solution is simple — states already have the information and tools at their disposal, they just need to use them,” Bain said. “Every day that states delay, more taxpayer dollars go to waste and into the abyss.”