The Trump administration is pressing health insurance companies to work only with ObamaCare brokers who record their enrollment calls, part of an expanding effort to root out fraudulent sign-ups that officials say have drained billions from taxpayers.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, told Fox News Digital that many of the accounts under scrutiny are not real people at all.
“These [ObamaCare enrollees] are phantom accounts,” Oz said. “There are no human beings involved in these accounts.”
Oz said his agency tried to verify the accounts directly and came up empty. “We reached out to them. We wanted to know, have you filed any claims? We don’t see anything. Have you ever responded to any questions we’ve asked you? Do you have a Social Security number? Without that, I can’t tell if you made enough money to be on Obamacare or maybe too much to be,” he said.
Vice President JD Vance announced Tuesday that the administration’s anti-fraud task force will remove 750,000 fraudulent recipients from ObamaCare rolls, a step officials say will save taxpayers $2.2 billion.
Insurers Pushed to Require Taped Calls
Oz said CMS is now encouraging insurers to work only with brokers who record their conversations with applicants. “From now on, we’re asking insurance companies to work with brokers who record the conversations,” he said. “Why wouldn’t you? What are you nervous about? What are you worried about? Why don’t you want me to hear what you discussed?”
He said the goal is to confirm that a real, verifiable applicant authorized the enrollment and actually qualifies for the program. “I’m trying to make sure you had a real discussion to explain the policies and truly tried your best to get the right people in the right programs,” Oz said. “Otherwise, we have massive corporate fraud.”
Over a Million Accounts Flagged
Oz said the administration found 1.1 million people receiving ObamaCare benefits without a Social Security number on file. “The 760,000 accounts that we terminated, we took out because the American taxpayers should not be paying fraudulent brokers to lie about people who don’t exist, collect premiums and run away with the money,” he said.
Separately, the Treasury Department has begun sending $500 refund checks to roughly 1 million Americans, accompanied by a letter from President Donald Trump criticizing the Biden administration for overcharging taxpayers “to fund the operation of HealthCare.gov.”
Oz suggested further measures are coming. “I don’t know what’s driving this desire to hurt our ability to regulate,” he said. “But I can tell you, for sure, we have other tricks up our sleeve to make sure we don’t let the American people get taken advantage of.”
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