White House fraud task force will remove more than 760,000 Obamacare enrollees, some of whom may not exist

By Tami Luhby, CNN

(CNN) — A White House task force will remove hundreds of thousands of enrollees from Affordable Care Act coverage, citing widespread fraud, Vice President JD Vance announced Tuesday alongside Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The action will save $2.2 billion in improperly paid federal subsidies, Vance said at a news conference.

Some of these more than 760,000 people are so-called phantom enrollees who don’t exist, while others may have been enrolled without their knowledge, Oz said.

The Trump administration will also suspend brokers and agents involved in improperly signing up enrollees and place a six-month moratorium on new brokers and agents, he added. The Biden administration in 2024 also suspended hundreds of brokers and agents for suspected fraud, which ramped up after federal subsidies were made more generous in 2021.

Another 419,000 people will be subject to additional verification, including making sure they meet the income thresholds and are legal residents.

The latest move comes as Republicans are trying to show they are cracking down on healthcare fraud, including in Medicaid and Medicare, ahead of the midterm elections in November. The action will save taxpayers money, strengthen the federal health insurance programs and ensure that those who need health coverage have access to it, GOP officials argue.

The steeply rising cost of healthcare is among voters’ top concerns, and Democrats are highlighting their opponents’ support of sweeping cuts to Medicaid as part of President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” and the expiration of the enhanced Obamacare premium subsidies this year. The two measures are expected to result in millions of people losing their coverage in coming years.

Moreover, healthcare premiums for Obamacare, employer-based coverage and Medicare soared for 2026 and are expected to jump again for the coming year — adding to Americans’ affordability woes.

Some 19.2 million people were enrolled in Affordable Care Act coverage as of February, according to the latest data from the Department of Health and Human Services — down from 21.8 million people the same period the year before. Enrollment nearly doubled after the enhanced subsidies were launched.

As part of the enhancement, lower-income Americans could sign up for coverage with no premiums and higher-income ones became eligible for assistance for the first time.

Criminals, largely brokers and agents, took advantage of this enhanced assistance and began enrolling enrollees and switching them to different plans without their knowledge. Some were unaware of the changes.

The Biden administration suspended 850 brokers and agents suspected of fraud in 2024, though Trump officials later quietly reinstated several hundred of them.

The Affordable Care Act has long been a target for Trump, who unsuccessfully sought for years to repeal it and then to weaken it.

One of the president’s healthcare advisors from his first administration, Brian Blase, has been releasing reports about widespread enrollment fraud in the Affordable Care Act. His think tank, Paragon Health Institute, has pointed out that nearly 12 million policyholders had no medical claims in 2024, suggesting these were “phantom enrollees.”

Oz echoed this argument, saying 35% of enrollees never used the program — about twice the traditional rate of those with insurance. Oz also noted that 1.1 million enrollees did not have Social Security numbers on file. Going forward, all applicants must include their Social Security numbers, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is adding more guardrails for brokers and agents seeking to enroll people, he said.

Now that ACA’s enhanced premium subsidies have expired, only people who earn less than 400% of the poverty level are eligible for assistance. That equates to $62,600 for an individual and $128,600 for a family of four.

Brad Woodhouse, president of advocacy group Protect Our Care, said in a statement that the task force is “a political stunt designed to throw even more people off their coverage while pretending to save taxpayers’ money.”

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