The Social Security Administration regularly checks to be sure its oldest beneficiaries are using their Medicare benefits. If not, SSA verifies the beneficiary is still alive. That’s one of a number of safeguards in place to prevent improper payments.

After President Donald Trump’s address to Congress, in which he claimed the amount of fraudulent payments is “shocking,” SSA issued a statement to further explain its practices.

Lee Dudek, acting commissioner of Social Security, said SSA regularly receives data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for individuals who have not used Medicare Part A or Part B for three or more years. That data is used as an indicator to select and prioritize cases of individuals age 90 or older, who are currently in pay status and living in the U.S., to determine continued eligibility for benefits.

If the agency identifies someone who is deceased, it immediately stops payment and reports any suspicion of fraud to SSA’s Office of the Inspector General.

SSA also has an automated process to stop payments by age 115. You can find it at https://secure.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0202602578.

This, of course, is in addition to the agency’s death reporting system. Each year, SSA receives nearly 3 million death reports from state vital statistics agencies via the Electronic Death Registration system.

According to a transcript posted at www.whitehouse.gov, President Trump said this about Social Security in his address Tuesday:

THE PRESIDENT: We’re also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors and that our seniors and people that we love rely on. Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old.

It lists 3.6 million people from ages 110 to 119. I don’t know any of them. I know some people that are rather elderly, but not quite that elderly. (Laughter.)

3.47 million people from ages 120 to 129.

3.9 million people from ages 130 to 139.

3.5 million people from ages 140 to 149.

And money is being paid to many of them, and we’re searching right now.

In fact, Pam, good luck. Good luck. You’re going to find it.

But a lot of money is paid out to people because it just keeps getting paid and paid, and nobody does — and it really hurts Social Security and hurts our country.

1.3 million people from ages 150 to 159. And over 130,000 people, according to the Social Security databases, are age over 160 years old.

We hson between the age of 240 and 249; and one person is listed at 360 years of age.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Joe Biden! (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: More than 100 years older than our country.

But we’re going to find out where that money is going, and it’s not going to be pretty.

“Pam,” in the president’s speech, is a reference to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. “Bobby” is Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The Associated Press in its same-night summary of the speech, reported this: “Trump repeated false claims that tens of millions of dead people over 100 years old are receiving Social Security payments, prompting some Democrats to shout, ‘Not true!’ and ‘Those are lies!'”

Those shouts are not included in the White House transcript.

ad people are receiving payments, only that “many” over age 100 are improper recipients.

That’s seemingly a retreat from his initial claims during a Feb. 18 press briefing when he said “maybe millions” were receiving fraudulent Social Security benefits.

On Feb. 20, The Daily News published a fact-check by Fatima Hussein of the Associated Press, headlined, “Tens of millions of dead people aren’t getting Social Security checks, despite Trump’s claims.” The AP and many others have explained that, yes, Social Security’s database lists millions of people who don’t have a date of death associated with their record. But it doesn’t mean they’re receiving benefits.

Although SSA was aware of the missing information, it decided to forgo an update that would carry an estimated cost of $9 million or more, AP reported. Adding death dates to these old records, would be “costly to implement (and) would be of little benefit,” the agency had determined.

Whether that decision proves wise may depend on whether the attorney general actually finds payments to the long, long dead to prosecute.

— The Daily News, Iron Mountain