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Letter to the editor

'Dead' woman gets revived in records

The Social Security office tells Josephine Miskowitz a missing check is due Thursday.

By PHIL DAVIS
Published June 8, 2005

PORT RICHEY - The Social Security Administration promised Tuesday it will bring 78-year-old Josephine Miskowitz back to life Thursday.

But the "dead" woman is not holding her breath.

"I don't believe anybody. I have to see it," said Miskowitz, a Port Richey widow who was mistakenly classified as "deceased" by the Social Security Administration in February and has been fighting to get her benefits ever since. Her struggled was chronicled in the Pasco Times on Tuesday.

Miskowitz said a representative from the office of Rep. Michael Bilirakis, R-Tarpon Springs, assured her Tuesday morning that her missing Social Security money - $1,984.84 - will be deposited in her bank account Thursday.

Jim Demer, a spokesman for the Social Security Administration in St. Petersburg, said cases such as Miskowitz's are rare among the 44-million Social Security beneficiaries.

"The bottom line is, this shouldn't have taken this long," Demer said. "There are all sorts of reasons for this, but it is not an everyday occurrence. We don't want it to happen even one time because of the effect it has on people."

For Miskowitz, bringing herself back to life meant making dozens of phone calls, filling out forms, writing to her congressional representative and, mostly, waiting in the Port Richey Social Security office. Miskowitz said the agency did cut her emergency checks in the past few months - both after a four-hour wait in the lobby - but her March check remains in bureaucratic limbo.

On Tuesday, Miskowitz said there were a few signs she is back in the land of the living.

Her insurance company, which canceled her policy after hearing of her "death," approved payment for her emphysema medicine. Payment had been denied as recently as Saturday, she said.

She went to the bank Tuesday to look for her promised March benefits check, but it wasn't there. Now it is supposed to arrive on Thursday, a final acknowledgement she has returned from the grave.

"I asked them, "If you cleared all this up in one day, why didn't you do it in March?"' Miskowitz said. "They said, "Well, we were working on it."'

[Last modified June 8, 2005, 01:06:11]