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The United States government said it was sorry to learn Morris Williams died.
Williams was a bit concerned, too.
The 56-year-old disabled veteran opened a letter that informed him he died in December and owes the government $15,708.
“I had to pinch myself to make sure I was still living,” Williams said, laughing.
The Port Lavaca veteran didn’t laugh, though, when his $2,614 monthly disability check failed to arrive on Tuesday.
Bills were due – and this Army veteran can’t afford stress.
Williams suffered a stroke late last year and he undergoes regular care for high blood pressure, diabetes and other ailments.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs – the very group that provides him with free health care – made him feel even worse.
“I am dead,” Williams said. “I’m not used to being late on payments.”
Williams is late on a phone, car and loan payment and on other bills, he said. His phone was disconnected.
The government stopped his disability payment when it wrongly determined he was dead.
Because the government thought he died in December, it demanded Williams’ family repay the disability checks sent to him from January to June.
Williams opened the letter late on Friday, June 27, fresh from a four-day visit to a San Antonio veterans hospital.
He couldn’t reach the Department of Veterans Affairs until Monday, the day his disability check should have arrived.
Valerie Martinez, a Houston-based veterans affairs spokeswoman, answered his call.
“We are definitely working hard at correcting any mistakes that are made, especially any mistakes that have a negative impact on veterans and their families,” Martinez said during a phone interview.
She explained the veteran’s medical records were misread and filed wrong.
Each disability claim and death notice is coded with a special acronym. Williams’ claim had the code CNH, a confirmation that he should be transported to a contract nursing home.
But the claim processor filed the record under the code NOD, or notice of death.
“When you process these in bulk, you look at several acronyms,” Martinez said. “We get notices of death all the time, an incoming flow of death notices. As soon as I learned of this document, we had his benefits resumed.”
Martinez said this Houston veterans affairs office receives at least 3,000 disability claims, death notices and other claims each month.
The 330-employee staff serves veterans living in San Antonio, Houston, Victoria, Corpus Christi, McAllen and the smaller South Texas towns in between.
Twice this year a veteran was wrongly deemed dead, she said.
“We understand the hardship this placed on him,” Martinez said. “We have regular quality reviews conducted.”
Williams, though, is unimpressed by quality reviews.
“Every time I talk to them people my blood pressure goes up,” he said.
The day after he talked to Martinez, the phone company disconnected his phone. In poor health, he worried he’d become sick and be unable to call for help.
“I need my phone,” he said.
Roland Valles, a telephone service provider spokesman, said he couldn’t discuss Williams’ account. He did say Williams had to have been at least 30 days late on his payment.
“If he doesn’t make the payment, we’ll disconnect it,” Valles said.
Williams contends his phone bill was due in mid June – just two weeks before service was disconnected – and that the company was wrong to turn his phone off.
“This all just happened at a very bad time,” Williams said.
Martinez told Williams he’d receive the belated check by FedEx on Friday – the Fourth of July.
If Williams received the check, he couldn’t be reached on Friday to confirm it. His phone is still disconnected.
It’s unlikely he enjoyed the fireworks.
“I don’t have anything, no money,” Williams said. “I don’t even have any gas.”
Gabe Semenza is the Public Service Editor for the Advocate. Contact him at 361-580-6519 or gsemenza@vicad.com.