Senator John Kennedy just dropped a truth nuke on News Nation with Katie Pavlich, and it’s the kind of thing that makes you want to grab a pitchfork and storm the Capitol—wait, bad idea, but you get the point. The Louisiana firebrand laid it out plain: our bloated, brain-dead government has been shipping billions of your hard-earned tax dollars straight to dead people. Yeah, you read that right—checks cashed by ghosts, or more likely, fraudsters playing Weekend at Bernie’s with granny’s Social Security. Kennedy’s not blowing smoke; this is a scandal that’s been festering like a DC swamp for years, and it’s high time we bury it for good. But is he spot on? Damn right he is, and here’s the deep dive proving it, plus what we can do to plug this leak before it drowns us all in red ink.
The Gruesome Numbers: Billions Down the Drain
Kennedy didn’t pull this out of thin air. Back in the day, before anyone gave a damn, the feds were firing off payments to the dearly departed like it was confetti at a funeral. Take the 2020 stimulus bonanza—$1.4 billion went to over a million dead folks because some genius forgot to check the obituary section. That’s not chump change; that’s your kids’ future flushed away. And it wasn’t a one-off. From 2009 to 2019, audits nailed down $249 million in Medicaid payments to ghosts in just 14 states. Fast forward to 2021-2022, and we’re talking another $207 million in unallowable capitation payments to managed care outfits for enrollees who were pushing up daisies—$138 million of that federal dough.
Cumulatively? Since 2016, we’ve got $289 million in Medicaid alone squandered on the deceased. Add in Social Security screw-ups: $327 million in improper payments due to mismatched state death reports, with another $108 million potentially on the way if we don’t fix it. Treasury’s own estimates peg annual losses to dead payees at $800 million a pop. Over a decade? That’s billions, easy. Kennedy’s calling it like it is—we’ve been hemorrhaging cash to cadavers, and the total hits billions when you tally the long haul. Recent revelations? A January 2025 Treasury pilot clawed back $31 million in five months, projecting $215 million saved over three years. But that’s peanuts compared to the waste—$113 million net benefit in 2024 from better death data access, with $337 million eyed by 2026 if we make it permanent.
Senator John Kennedy just delivered over two straight minutes of pitch-perfect “Kennedyisms” on NewsNation.
As @KatiePavlich sat across from Kennedy, she couldn’t help but crack up at times.
KENNEDY: “The idea that we send billions of dollars to dead people and they get cashed.… pic.twitter.com/S47Ka6LEKB
— Overton (@overton_news) February 13, 2026
Why the Hell Is This Happening? Bureaucratic Zombies at Work
It’s not like death is a surprise. People croak, records get updated—except in Washington, where efficiency goes to die. The Social Security Administration’s Death Master File has over 142 million records dating back to 1899, but agencies like Treasury couldn’t always tap the full thing until a temporary fix in December 2023. Result? Payments keep flowing to the expired because data silos let fraudsters feast. Medicaid’s a prime offender—states paid out $9.6 million in Louisiana from 2019 to 2025 for 1,072 dead beneficiaries, and Colorado coughed up $6 million for over 220,000 payments to the deceased. Social Security’s no saint either; audits show 11 percent of flagged deaths were bogus, but the real dead ones still got paid millions.
This ain’t rocket science—it’s laziness and legacy systems that couldn’t verify a pulse if it bit them. Kennedy hammered this in his chat: we were sending billions to dead people, checks got cashed, obvious fraud. And he’s right; government-wide improper payments hit $2.8 trillion since 2003, with fraud eating up $233 billion to $521 billion yearly. Dead payees are just the tip of the iceberg, but they’re a symptom of a system rigged for waste, not wins.
The Verdict: Kennedy’s Dead Accurate
Is Kennedy correct? Abso-freaking-lutely. The billions aren’t some annual jackpot—it’s the accumulated idiocy over years of unchecked payouts. Stimulus alone proves it: $1.4 billion to the graveyard in one go. Recent audits and pilots confirm the rot’s still there, with hundreds of millions vanishing yearly. Sure, improper payments overall are “only” 1 percent of benefits, but when you’re talking trillions in outlays, that’s real money—your money—propping up fraud rings and feeding the deficit beast. Kennedy’s assessment isn’t hyperbole; it’s a wake-up call to a government that’s been sleepwalking through the cemetery.
Fixing the Mess: Time to Pull the Plug
So, what can we do before this turns into a zombie apocalypse for the budget? Kennedy’s got the blueprint with the Ending Improper Payments to Deceased People Act, signed into law by President Trump to stop this nonsense. Make Treasury’s access to the full Death Master File permanent—it’s already saving $109 million net in 2024, with $330 million projected by December 2026. Expand data sharing across agencies; no more silos letting deadbeats (literal ones) slip through. CMS should match enrollment data against death records routinely, recovering unallowable payments and slapping down high-risk states.
States need to step up too—beef up verification, claw back overpayments like the $41 million still outstanding from old audits. Implement the One Big Beautiful Bill Act provisions for automated checks. Treasury’s DNP Working System is a start, but make it mandatory for all programs. Bottom line: reject the waste, embrace the tech, and save billions. We’ve got the tools; now use ’em. If we don’t, the next revelation will be even uglier, and America’s First means putting a stop to this grave robbery yesterday. Kennedy spoke truth—now let’s act on it, or we’ll all end up buried in debt.