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One example in the report feels almost impossible to believe: a single Social Security number used to obtain 125 different insurance plans, collectively covering 26,000 days — equivalent to 71 years of taxpayer-funded coverage. If that doesn’t sound like a system begging for exploitation, nothing does.
Republicans in Congress wasted no time responding. Missouri Rep. Jason Smith blasted Democrats for enabling the mess, stating, “While Democrats defend waste, fraud, and abuse, Republicans are taking action to lower health care costs and protect care for all real, living Americans.”
Smith continued, warning that, “GAO’s troubling report is the smoking gun that shows how this broken system, shielded by Democrat policies, has led to the federal government shoveling tens of billions of tax dollars to insurance companies through identity fraud and caused health care costs to skyrocket for all Americans.”
The GAO didn’t just comb through records — it ran its own sting operation. As reported by the New York Post, investigators submitted fake applications to see whether the system would flag suspicious information. It didn’t. Not even once.
For the 2024 enrollment year, the agency sent in four bogus applicants. According to the report, all of them were approved without “documentation to support Social Security numbers (SSN), citizenship, and reported income.”
In other words, the federal gatekeepers didn’t bother checking whether the identity, citizenship, or financial details were real — they just accepted them and funneled taxpayer dollars accordingly.
The following year wasn’t any better. For 2025, the GAO submitted 20 fake applications — 18 of them successfully received coverage and remained active as of September 2025. If the Biden administration were hoping the program had tightened its security, that hope was thoroughly crushed.
The fraud isn’t just in new applications either. The report revealed that 66,000 Social Security numbers were tied to more than a full year of premium subsidies, suggesting ongoing manipulation long after coverage should have been reviewed or terminated.
Texas Rep. Jodey Arrington reacted to the GAO’s findings by calling the situation a “bombshell,” telling Politico that the exposure makes it clear “there is absolutely no justification for perpetuating these subsidies or the failed government-controlled Obamacare system Democrats are artificially propping up.”
Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho also weighed in, pointing directly at the Biden-era expansion of subsidies. According to the Senate Finance Committee, Crapo said the GAO results “further illustrate the brokenness of Obamacare,” adding that “The temporary, enhanced COVID-era credits have exacerbated Obamacare’s structural failures, causing fraud to explode and leaving taxpayers to subsidize criminals and shady insurance brokers. Premiums and out-of-pocket costs are rising for all Americans, but as we look for ways to improve the health care system, this investigation serves as a stark reminder that we cannot simply throw good money after bad policy.”
With billions in taxpayer cash flowing to fake identities, deceased individuals, fraudulent insurance brokers, and unchecked applications, Republicans argue the evidence is overwhelming: Obamacare isn’t simply failing — it’s being drained from the inside. And according to the GAO, unless leaders in Washington finally tighten enforcement and rethink the system, the hemorrhaging will only get worse.
