States must verify Medicaid beneficiaries quarterly to remove the deceased
H.R. 1403 — LIVE Beneficiaries Act · Filed by Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) · 3 cosponsors · Introduced Feb 18, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill requires states to check the federal Death Master File at least quarterly to identify and remove deceased individuals from Medicaid enrollment, effective January 1, 2027. States must disenroll deceased beneficiaries and stop paying for their medical care, while immediately reinstating coverage if someone is mistakenly identified as dead. The bill allows states to use other data sources to find deceased beneficiaries as long as they also comply with the Death Master File requirement.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core function is a procedural requirement for states to verify and remove deceased beneficiaries from Medicaid rolls using the Death Master File. It is a straightforward administrative measure to prevent improper payments and ensure program integrity.
What the text implies
- Quarterly verification cycles may create temporary gaps in coverage identification; deaths occurring between reviews could result in brief periods of erroneous payments before the next quarterly check.
- States with limited administrative capacity may struggle to implement timely reinstatement procedures for misidentified individuals, potentially creating delays in restoring coverage for living beneficiaries.
- The bill permits states to use alternative data sources beyond the Death Master File, creating potential inconsistency in verification standards across states and possible variation in disenrollment timing.
- Reinstatement is retroactive to the disenrollment date, but the bill does not explicitly address whether states must compensate beneficiaries for denied claims during the erroneous disenrollment period.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Removing deceased individuals from Medicaid rolls prevents fraudulent or erroneous payments and redirects limited public funds to living beneficiaries who need coverage. The bill includes a reinstatement safeguard for misidentified individuals, protecting against wrongful disenrollment. This is a straightforward eligibility-verification measure that reduces waste in a public program.
Who stands to gain
- State Medicaid programs (reduced improper payments)
- Living Medicaid beneficiaries (more available program funds)
Named in the bill
Social Security Act, Death Master File, Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013, State Medicaid programs, 42 CFR 431.213
Where it stands
3 cosponsors: 2 Democrats, 1 Republicans.
- Feb 18, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Feb 18, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Energy and Commerce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $3,010,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 77 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Gus Bilirakis, the sponsor, reported $937,250 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- America's Health Insurance Plans Inc (ahip) — $3,010,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (2,851 characters) on Aug 19, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“States must verify Medicaid beneficiaries quarterly to remove the deceased” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr1403 Report an error
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