States must verify Medicaid beneficiaries quarterly to stop paying deceased individuals
S. 678 — LIVE Beneficiaries Act · Filed by Rick Scott (R-FL) · Introduced Feb 20, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill requires states to check the federal Death Master File at least quarterly to identify deceased Medicaid beneficiaries and disenroll them, stopping payments for services after death. If someone is wrongly flagged as dead, the state must immediately re-enroll them retroactively. The requirement takes effect January 1, 2027.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is a procedural requirement for states to verify beneficiary status and disenroll deceased individuals. It is a straightforward administrative control designed to reduce improper payments and program waste.
What the text implies
- States must implement new quarterly Death Master File review processes by January 1, 2027, requiring IT infrastructure investment and staff training; implementation costs may fall on state Medicaid agencies.
- The bill does not specify penalties or enforcement mechanisms if states fail to comply with quarterly verification, leaving oversight authority unclear.
- Reliance on the Death Master File alone may miss deaths not yet reported to SSA; the rule-of-construction clause permits supplemental data sources but does not mandate them, creating potential variation in death-detection timeliness across states.
- Retroactive reinstatement for wrongly disenrolled beneficiaries may create administrative burden and claims-processing complexity if errors occur.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill reduces improper Medicaid payments to deceased individuals, lowering taxpayer cost and freeing resources for living beneficiaries. The error-correction mechanism (immediate reinstatement if wrongly flagged) protects against wrongful disenrollment of living people. On balance, ordinary citizens benefit from reduced waste and stronger program integrity.
Named in the bill
Social Security Administration, Death Master File, Medicaid (Title XIX), State Medicaid agencies, Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013, 42 CFR 431.213
Where it stands
- Feb 20, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Feb 20, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Finance · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (2,952 characters) on Oct 31, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,778 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.
As of — page rendered 2026-10-31.
“States must verify Medicaid beneficiaries quarterly to stop paying deceased individuals” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s678 Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.