SS, IRS, Medicare/MedicAid, military, and OPM databases do need to be integrated instead of each working in a vacuum, but if they are going to screw up, I'd prefer for the errors to be on the side of paying benefits rather than stiffing some poor bastard for his retirement check and then making him prove to their satisfaction that he really is alive despite what their records show, when the records 'Couldn't possibly be wrong,' like all screwed-up government records.