(WASHINGTON) -- Vice President JD Vance announced Tuesday that 750,000 people allegedly fraudulently enrolled in Affordable Care Act insurance plans will be kicked off the programs.
The effort comes from the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, chaired by Vance, which he said will save American taxpayers $2.2 billion by preventing what he called "rampant" fraud.
"We had a system in this country that rewarded brokers, that made people rich for enrolling fake people in programs that are meant to ensure that our fellow citizens have health care. This was a scandal," Vance said.
The 750,000 "phantom people" were allegedly signed up for programs without their knowledge or without meeting the eligibility requirements to enroll. An additional 419,000 individuals are going through further verification.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said more than a third of those enrolled in the system have never used the program, suggesting potential fraud.
An estimated 19.2 million Americans were enrolled in ACA exchange plans in 2025, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services.
"You cannot protect Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid if you're allowing fraudsters to get rich off those programs and to steal the benefits that ought by right go to American citizens," Vance said.
Vance urged Congressional Democrats to work with the fraud task force, saying "it's up to them to actually care more about the American people than they do the fraudsters who are getting rich off of those same Americans."
When asked by ABC News if there is a possibility that the task force is mistakenly tagging people as fraudulent even though they do qualify for the program, Vance said the task force is doing everything it can to identify the ways in which they say people are fraudulently enrolling in the program.
"And if we suspect that somebody is fraudulently enrolled or is enrolled without their own knowledge, we do a lot. As Dr. Oz said, we send them FedEx letters, we go to their house, we do everything that we can to ensure that their eligibility is actually viable," Vance said.
In a statement, Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., the ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee, sharply criticized the move.
“Republicans have already created the worst health care crisis ever, but every decision by the Trump Administration is designed to keep making it worse," he said. "As if making coverage harder to access through skyrocketing premiums and more red tape wasn’t painful enough, they’re doubling down to take it away entirely."
The group Protect Our Care, a left-leaning group that advocates against cuts to the ACA, said the task force announcement was a distraction.
"At a time when millions of Americans are already losing coverage and facing skyrocketing costs, Vance and this administration are making the crisis exponentially worse," Protect Our Care President Brad Woodhouse said in a statement. "They are piling on more red tape, more confusion, and more opportunities for people to lose the coverage they rely on. Families need coverage they can afford and count on when they get sick. Vance’s task force won’t accomplish that. It’s a smokescreen for an administration whose sole mission is to make it harder to get and stay covered and shower billionaires with tax breaks instead."
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