Newsman: Vice President JD Vance and other Trump administration officials said Tuesday they plan to remove 760,000 Affordable Care Act enrollees from public healthcare exchanges, alleging that the individuals were fraudulently enrolled in the program, or simply do not exist. At the press conference, Tuesday, Vice President Vance referred to some enrollments lacking social security numbers or immigration documentation.
The Trump administration also announced a six-month suspension on new agents or brokers who sign up enrollees for healthcare coverage, who officials say commit a disproportionate amount of the fraud they uncovered.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the news of the Trump administration’s plan to remove ACA enrollees from public exchanges.
Vice President Vance said the discovery and canceled subsidy payments for hundreds of thousands of people from the exchanges, part of an administration-wide crackdown on fraud, would result in $2.2 billion in cost savings.
“We’re actually making sure that the people receiving Obamacare subsidies are actually entitled to receive them,” said Vance, who leads a government task force to eliminate fraud. He was flanked by Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, and other administration officials.
JD Vance said the cancellation of approximately 315,000 enrollments covering 760,000 people was done in part because the government was not checking whether people enrolled were eligible. Vance said another 419,000 enrollments will get additional verification to make sure they are eligible for the benefit.
Roughly 19.2 million Americans are actively enrolled in ACA marketplace health plans as of early 2026, according to the Department of Health and Human Services website. The number of enrollees grew during the COVID-19 pandemic when enhanced subsidies became available through the American Rescue Plan Act and Inflation Reduction Act, both signed into law by former President Joe Biden.
Tuesday’s announcement is the latest in an initiative by the Trump administration to address fraud around the country, including in federal healthcare programs, which officials say is needed to rein in runaway spending and protect taxpayers.
The announcement comes as stubbornly high inflation and rising healthcare costs pressure the Trump administration to come up with a plan to bring down costs for Americans as affordability remains a central issue in the fall midterm elections.
The price of ACA insurance has skyrocketed for many Americans during Trump’s second term, after Republicans opposed extending COVID-era subsidies that had helped offset the costs of health insurance for most enrollees during Biden’s term.
Premiums doubled or tripled for many enrollees, prompting millions to downgrade their plans or exit the program entirely after the Republican-led Congress allowed the subsidies to expire this year.
The Government Accountability Office suggests fraud risks in the advance premium tax credit do exist – however it’s unclear at what scale. The GAO conducted covert testing using fictitious ACA applicants enrolled in 2024 and 2025. A report released in December showed that the federal marketplace approved subsidized coverage for almost all of the GAO’s 24 fake enrollees.
