The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has exposed Healthcare.gov and its state healthcare marketplaces for approving fictitious applications as eligible for subsidies for the second consecutive year, The Washington Free Beacon reported, citing the GAO's latest congressional report.
"Now a year later, GAO has reported that nothing has changed and that, if anything, there are more problems," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told the Free Beacon. "Worst of all, the administration has known about these problems for over a year now and has apparently not taken the necessary steps to rectify them."
In a government watchdog sting in 2015 and repeated in 2016, the GAO acted as an ordinary consumer in the healthcare marketplace, completing fake online applications and making phone calls as instructed, using fake Social Security cards, driver's licenses, etc., according to the report.
The Affordable Care Act requires the marketplace to validate application information, but nine of 12 fake applicants were approved for coverage and subsidies, and only three were appropriately denied, per the GAO.
Those nine were cleared for advance premium tax credit subsidies, which averaged about $1,580 per month — $18,960 per year — according to the report.
"[The Department of Health and Human Services] takes seriously its commitment to ensuring the program integrity of the marketplaces established by the Affordable Care Act," Jim Esquea, assistant secretary for HHS, told the Examiner.
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