By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-09-22 17:47:01 | Updated at 2026-09-22 18:19:50
36 minutes ago
The federal government has removed hundreds of thousands of Obamacare enrollments created for people who either do not meet eligibility requirements or simply don’t exist, Vice President JD Vance said on Sept. 22.
The action, initiated by the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, targets 760,000 accounts and will save taxpayers an estimated $2.2 billion, according to federal officials.
The federal government also removed hundreds of brokers and agents who it believes may have knowingly enrolled people who did not qualify or did not exist, and imposed a six-month moratorium on the enrollment of new brokers.
“We had a system in this country that rewarded brokers, that made people rich for enrolling fake people in programs that are meant to ensure that our fellow citizens have healthcare. This was a scandal,” Vance said in a Sept. 22 press conference.
Obamacare, created by the Affordable Care Act, began offering federally subsidized private health insurance to people making up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level in 2024. For 2026 enrollment, that equates $62,600 for an individual or $128,600 for a family of four.
Enrollment was around 10 million prior to the Covid-19 era but spiked above 24 million after Covid-19 era regulations expanded the eligibility window and allowed some enrollees to gain coverage with no premium payment.
That growth was driven by improper enrollments as lax enforcement allowed unscrupulous brokers to enroll people without income verification or Social Security numbers, according to Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The problem persisted into 2026, even after the enhanced premium subsides that drove the false enrollments ended. Some 6.2 million enrollments in the healthcare exchanges for this year were improper, according to a report from conservative think tank Paragon Health Institute. That accounts for 27 percent of all enrollments.”
Oz said the 760,000 enrollees removed had never paid a premium or filed a claim, leading officials to conclude that they either did not need the program or do not exist. They were removed only after persistent attempts to contact them failed.
Another 420,000 enrollees will be further examined to determine if they meet eligibility requirements, Vance said.
The deeper problem with fraud is that it robs the healthcare system of much-needed funding, increasing costs for everyone, Vance said.
“When you take $2 billion—that’s 550,000 children’s worth of healthcare—out of the system and put it into fraud, that raises costs for everybody, Vance said.
Oz stated more simply, “Fraud will destroy Obamacare.”
Fraudsters generally move from one program to another after detection, officials said, and federal fraud enforcement is using pattern-recognition data technology to keep ahead of it.
“Fraud doesn’t stand still,” said Chris Klomp, the Trump nominee for deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. “We can’t fight modern fraud by playing whack-a-mole, closing one scheme, waiting to see where it’s going to show up next. We’re learning how to fight these networks.”
Enforcement activities are now increasingly targeting pre-payment fraud detection using artificial intelligence, said Andrew Ferguson, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission.
“The executive order creating the task force ... set a bunch of technological requirements that agencies have to meet, which are about being able to detect fraud before it happens, before claims are paid,” Ferguson said at the Sept. 22 press event.
The announcement follows two dozen previous enforcement actions by the Task Force that resulted in criminal charges, convictions, or apprehension of more than 500 individuals, the removal of more than 1,000 California hospices from the Medicare program, and taxpayer savings greater than $300 billion, according to government statements.
