Trump Admin Removes 760,000 From Obamacare as Dr Oz Points to Enrollees Who 'Never Filed a Claim'

The Trump administration says it has removed more than 760,000 people from Affordable Care Act coverage after federal officials determined that roughly 315,000 enrolments were unauthorised.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said it cancelled approximately 315,000 enrolments covering more than 760,000 individuals on 31 August following reviews conducted with health insurers. CMS expects the cancellations to return roughly $2.2 billion in advance premium tax credit payments.

Vice-President JD Vance, who leads the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, said the crackdown was intended to ensure Obamacare subsidies go only to people who qualify.

'We're actually making sure that the people receiving Obamacare subsidies are actually entitled to receive them,' Vance said on Tuesday.

Oz Points to Enrollees Who Never Used Coverage

Dr Mehmet Oz, the CMS administrator, pointed to cases in which people had apparently never used the insurance attached to their names. He said some individuals had 'never filed a claim' for a doctor's visit, filled a prescription or responded when investigators tried to contact them.

Administration officials say some consumers were signed up without knowing it, while other applications contained missing or unverifiable information.

CMS says it confirmed the cancelled enrolments as unauthorised after reviews with insurance companies. Another 419,000 enrolments are undergoing additional verification rather than being automatically cancelled.

However, healthcare policy experts have cautioned that not using an insurance plan does not, by itself, prove that someone was fraudulently enrolled.

Cynthia Cox, vice president and director of the ACA programme at health policy organisation KFF, said there was legitimate reason to remove people who had been fraudulently signed up but questioned whether the administration had adequately demonstrated that everyone affected fell into that category.

New Obamacare Broker Registrations Face Six-Month Freeze

The administration is also targeting brokers and agents who enrol consumers through the federal marketplace.

CMS announced a temporary moratorium on new broker registrations for the 2027 plan year, arguing that recently registered brokers account for a disproportionately high share of activity it considers suspicious.

Since January, more than 200 agents and brokers have received termination notices. Another 569 received notices of intent to terminate this summer after submitting applications missing identifying information such as Social Security numbers.

Oz said officials believe some brokers signed consumers up without their knowledge in order to generate commissions. CMS is also requiring stronger identity verification and electronic consumer authorisation before brokers can change applications.

Crackdown Comes as ACA Enrolment Falls

The action comes during a turbulent year for the Affordable Care Act. About 19.2 million Americans had effectuated ACA marketplace coverage in February 2026, down from roughly 21.8 million a year earlier.

Enhanced premium tax credits introduced in 2021 and later extended through 2025 expired at the end of last year, causing sharply higher premium payments for many consumers.

Marketplace enrolment fell by nearly three million people compared with 2025. KFF says the decline coincided with sharply higher premium payments after the enhanced tax credits expired, while the Trump administration has attributed part of the drop to its anti-fraud efforts.

The administration says its latest action aims to protect taxpayers and legitimate Obamacare customers from unauthorised enrolments and alleged fraud.

Healthcare policy experts agree that people enrolled without their knowledge should be removed from plans, but some are pressing officials to disclose more about how they determined which hundreds of thousands of enrolments to cancel.