U.S. President JD Vance announced Tuesday, September 22, that the Trump administration will remove around 760,000 enrollees from Affordable Care Act marketplaces, alleging many were fraudulently enrolled or do not exist.
The Trump administration is removing people it claims fall into two main groups, including ineligible enrollees and phantom enrollees. Ineligible enrollees are people who don’t meet income thresholds or residency requirements but were still receiving subsidies.
Phantom enrollees are people who officials say don’t exist at all, or who were enrolled by brokers without their knowledge. In short, the administration says it’s targeting fraudulent or fake sign-ups, not legitimate enrollees.
Vance said: “We’re actually making sure that the people receiving Obamacare subsidies are actually entitled to receive them.”
Oz said 35% of enrollees never used the program and 1.1 million lacked Social Security numbers on file. The administration also imposed a six-month moratorium on new brokers and agents, citing disproportionate fraud.
This action immediately affects 4% of the 19.2 million Americans enrolled in ACA marketplace plans as of early 2026, down from 21.8 million a year earlier.
The announcement comes as rising healthcare costs and affordability dominate the lead-up to November’s midterm elections.
Premiums have doubled or tripled for many Republicans after COVID-era enhanced subsidies expire, prompting millions to downgrade or drop coverage.
Democrats condemned the move. Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts said Republicans “have already created the worst healthcare crisis ever, but every decision by the Trump Administration is designed to keep making it worse.”
Advocacy group Protect Our Care called it “a political stunt designed to throw even more people off their coverage.”
A GAO report found the federal marketplace approved subsidised coverage for nearly all of its 24 fictitious test applicants in 2024 and 2025, suggesting fraud risks do exist, though the scale remains unclear.
2026-09-23 00:24:00
