The bills follows repeated warnings from the OPM IG and GAO about ineligible persons being covered under FEHB. Image: Palto/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe House version of the annual defense authorization bill would require DoD and OPM to conduct a “comprehensive review of the civilian workforce on FEHB to ensure that all family members and dependents who are currently receiving benefits are in fact eligible.”
The language, inserted as an amendment to a bill that could come to floor voting in the upcoming weeks, would be the most concrete response to date regarding an issue that has been the subject of repeated warnings from OPM’s inspector general’s office and most recently from the GAO: ineligible persons being covered in the program as family members.
The topic also arose at a spring hearing of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, and in a follow-up letter to OPM from that committee’s chairman, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., asking for documents on the issue and calling ineligible enrollees “a flagrant waste of funds and may be driving up premium costs for eligible participants.”
Like that letter, the defense bill cites GAO’s estimate of up to $1 billion in extra costs to the program annually, which are passed on in the form of higher premiums to both the government, which pays 70 percent on average, and to enrollees.
It would require a report by January 5 detailing “how many records were checked, what method was used to verify eligibility, what systems were put in place to verify information for new hires, how many ineligible individuals were removed from FEHB, and total estimated cost savings as a result of this audit.”
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