The Trump administration is canceling Affordable Care Act enrollments covering more than 760,000 people as part of a sweeping effort to combat fraud and improper taxpayer-funded subsidies.
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Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday that approximately 315,000 enrollments covering more than 760,000 individuals were canceled after officials determined they were unauthorized. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates the action will return roughly $2.2 billion in taxpayer-funded subsidies.
“We’re actually making sure that the people receiving Obamacare subsidies are actually entitled to receive them,” Vance said.
The administration also plans additional eligibility verification for hundreds of thousands of other enrollments and has imposed a six-month suspension on new agents and brokers signing people up for coverage.
The crackdown follows evidence that vulnerabilities exist in the ACA marketplace. A Government Accountability Office investigation using fictitious applicants found the federal marketplace approved subsidized coverage for nearly all of its fake applicants during testing for the 2024 and 2025 plan years. GAO cautioned that its undercover testing was illustrative and could not be generalized to the entire ACA enrollment population.
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CMS said it has identified unauthorized enrollments and suspicious activity involving agents and brokers. Since January, the agency has sent termination notices to more than 200 agents and brokers it deemed noncompliant.
Democrats criticized the administration’s action. Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, accused Republicans of worsening the nation’s health care problems.
The enforcement push comes as Americans continue to face high health care costs and as affordability remains a major issue heading into the fall midterm elections.
The administration says its broader anti-fraud campaign is intended to protect taxpayers and ensure federal health care benefits go only to people who qualify.
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