Trump administration removes ACA enrollees over fraud claims

The Trump administration is canceling Affordable Care Act coverage for about 760,000 people, saying they were fraudulently enrolled, improperly receiving subsidies or may not exist, in a move officials said would save taxpayers $2.2 billion.

Vice President JD Vance and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz announced the action Tuesday as part of a broader administration effort to target fraud in government health programs. Vance said the government is “actually making sure that the people receiving Obamacare subsidies are actually entitled to receive them.”

“These programs are deserving, they are important, but they’re not going to exist unless we stop the fraud,” Vance said at a news conference.

NPR reported that the cancellations cover approximately 315,000 enrollments affecting 760,000 people. NBC News reported that officials said roughly 750,000 people had their ACA coverage canceled. The administration did not provide detailed information about who lost coverage or how those people were notified.

Vance said another 419,000 enrollments will face additional verification. Oz said those cases had “something about their story that was a little bit different than what we expected from the 100% fraud story.” He added, “We’re giving them another chance.”

Officials said the administration examined factors it considered suspicious, including whether an enrollee had signed up with help from a broker or agent, had never filed a claim, had a monthly premium fully covered by federal tax credits, and either lacked a Social Security number or had immigration documents that CMS could not verify in real time.

“We call them phantoms, because we believe most of them don’t exist or they had no idea they had coverage,” Oz said. “We believe that because we’ve been writing them, telexing them, FedExing, whatever we possibly can do to get in touch with them. They won’t answer.”

The administration also announced a six-month suspension on new agents or brokers signing up people for health coverage, NPR reported. Officials said brokers and agents account for a disproportionate share of the fraud they uncovered. Oz has said some brokers enrolled people without their knowledge to collect commission fees from insurers.

ACA enrollment rose sharply during the Biden administration, from about 11 million people to a record 24 million, as pandemic-era enhanced tax credits expanded eligibility for subsidies. Oz said Tuesday that “Obamacare had 10 million enrollees from 2015 to 2020. During Covid, it went up to 22 million people.” He said weakened guardrails and lack of enforcement under the previous administration helped drive the increase.

Enrollment has since fallen by roughly 3 million people after the enhanced subsidies expired, according to NBC News. NPR reported that about 19.2 million Americans were actively enrolled in ACA marketplace plans as of early 2026, citing the Department of Health and Human Services website. Premiums have doubled or tripled for many enrollees, prompting millions to downgrade their plans or leave the program, NPR reported.

Health policy experts say fraud exists in the ACA and the broader U.S. health system, but some questioned the scale of the problem and the process used to remove enrollees. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2025 that 2.3 million people were improperly receiving enhanced tax credits. The Government Accountability Office also found fraud risks in advance premium tax credits after nearly all of 24 fictitious applicants in covert testing were approved for subsidized coverage in 2024 and 2025, NPR reported.

Cynthia Cox, director of the ACA program at KFF, said there is “no question that somebody who was fraudulently enrolled should have their coverage canceled,” but questioned whether the administration used the right process and whether all those removed were actually fraudulent.

“It is entirely possible that many of these people were enrolled without their knowledge or were so-called phantom enrollees,” Cox told NBC News. “It is also entirely possible that many of these people were legitimately enrolled and simply did not respond in time.”

Ellen Montz, a former CMS official during the Biden administration, said there had been continuing work to eliminate ACA fraud and that the Trump administration had taken some steps targeting “actual fraudsters.” But she said Tuesday’s announcement lacked details. “I would imagine we’ll hear from some subset of consumers that ask: why did my enrollment get cancelled?” Montz said.

Democratic lawmakers criticized the action. Rep. Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, said, “Republicans have already created the worst healthcare crisis ever, but every decision by the Trump Administration is designed to keep making it worse.”