Health insurance benefits under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) have been revoked for 760,000 US residents due to fraudulent claims, federal officials said Tuesday. As US Secretary of Health Robert Kennedy Jr. emphasized, subsidies totaling $2.2 billion will return to the budget.
According to the administration of President Donald Trump, the fraud affected marketplaces that were created as part of a law passed by Congress and signed by Barack Obama in 2010. On such platforms, US citizens and legal residents have the opportunity to purchase health insurance plans on special terms through government subsidies.
US Vice President J.D. Vance, at a briefing on the situation, blamed the previous Joe Biden administration for gaps in background checks of applicants for benefits. Applicants must meet certain income and immigration status requirements.
“A program has emerged in which, on the one hand, brokers receive money for registering people in it, but on the other hand, the government does not even check that the registered people are actually eligible to participate in it. What happens? Of course, blatant fraud,” Vance said.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which administers Obamacare, noted that people who lost coverage were covered by 315,000 policies that were issued illegally.
The data of another 419,000 insured people is now continuing to be checked, CNBC adds, citing authorities. The audits are being led by the White House Fraud Task Force, led by Vance, which was established by Trump's executive order earlier this year.
Trump has previously been a vocal critic of Obamacare and tried to abolish the system during his first term as president. During his second term, the Republican called on Congress to redirect funds for the program “directly to the people” so that people could “buy their own, better insurance.”
The main idea of Obamacare, as CNBC notes, was to enroll as many people as possible, especially those without health problems, into health insurance. The calculation was made that this would reduce costs for everyone, including the state. The system included penalties for non-participation, but these were eliminated in 2019 by another law passed by Congress and signed by Trump.
