One thing has become clear in the debate on President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill”: Democrats do not actually care for the waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicid or Cheap Care Act Coverage (i.e., Obamacare). This is clear from them Opposition to Republican efforts Only eligible people are nominated to audit those programs.
To be fair, Democrats care about health care fraud A private health insurer Or the drug company is accused of cheating a government health care program, whether difficult or unbalanced on the allegations. But the real fraud arises from millions of disqualified people being enrolled in Medicade and Obamcare.
This is the reason that it is important to tested health care programs for regular audit, such as an audit of voter rolls regularly-which is a democrat and democrats and Liberal groups also oppose – Because the population changes.
Some Medicade or Obamcare beneficiaries or their spouse may take jobs that provide health coverage. Or their income can grow above the limit. Or they can be 65 years old and can enroll in Medicare, or they move out of the state without informing the authorities. And, of course, some die.
Honest mistakes may occur, but fraud seems to be widespread.
For example, Inspector General of Office of the Department of US Health and Human Services Published a report Covering four states in 2022 – New York, California, Colorado and Kentaki – 2014 and 2015 estimating the number of disqualified medicade beneficiaries. The Inspector General’s Office discovered the federal Medicade payment for the new beneficiaries, “a total $ 1.4 billion for more than 700,000 disqualified or potentially unqualified beneficiaries”. For those who were not new nominees, the office of Inspector General found that Medicid “spent $ 5 billion for about 5 million disqualified or potentially disqualified beneficiaries.”
Note that the study covers only four states, and it was five years ago in the epidemical medicid detailed Medicade. We can assume from this report that there is a possibility of millions of disqualified Medicade beneficiaries across the country.
For Obamcare, recently Paragon Health Institute Released your 2025 update Looking at the nominees in the program in the 2024 report. “We guess, conservative, that unfair [ACA] Enrollment – has been defined as Enroll which claimed but was not actually income between 100 and 150 percent. [the federal poverty level] – In 2024, he increased from 5.0 million Enroll to 6.4 million in 2025. We guess that the taxpayer cost of unfair enrollment will be more than $ 27 billion this year. ,
The elected leaders who care about the integrity and fiscal responsibility of the program must conduct regular checks to ensure that people are not gaming the system and taxpayers are misusing the dollar.
So, why do Democrats usually oppose efforts to identify unqualified beneficiaries in government health insurance programs? First, the Democrats rapidly embrace the government -run health care. 1 December according to Gallup Pol, “90% of Democrats that now say that the government should ensure that health coverage for all ensure that the highest galup has measured for the group till date.” Republican voted at 32 percent.
Most Democrats do not care if millions of disqualified people are in Obamacare or Medicade because they feel that everyone should be in the government -run health scheme. If the final goal is being achieved, what is a little fraud? Therefore, they respond to the Republican eligibility check by claiming “People will die“And changes will cause damage to rural hospitals that depend on the medicade.
The real problem faced by rural hospitals is the Medicade price control imposed by the government. Texas Hospital Association states The reimbursement of the Medicade Hospital, on average, covers 72 percent in-possession costs and 75 percent outpatient care costs for medicid customers. This underage leaves Texas hospitals with a multibilian-dollars deficiency. ”
Second, health care has significant economic benefits in ignoring fraud. Both Medicade and Obamacare come with adequate taxpayer-funded subsidy. Almost every state Medicade system game To increase its share of federal subsidy. More medicid recipients as a state will have more money than Washington.
For Obamcare, there are economic incentives to ignore, and even promote, fraud. Paragon writes that there are “Powerful incentives for individuals, brokers and insurers to wrong the applicants to qualify for large subsidies. Insurances benefit from large enrollment and government subsidies, and brokers benefit from high commissions.” States have very little encouragement to investigate Obamcare fraud, as it does not spends them anything.
Speaking about, health care is political incentive to ignore fraud. Many Democratic-LED Blue States Medicade and Obamcare argue about their large enrollment numbers, and therefore lower unlicensed rates. It gives Democrat virtue-writing opportunity To claim that they are doing better in providing health coverage. And their friend Media megaphone Their significant reporting on states such as Texas strengthens virtue-signal, with higher rates.
Republican’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” includes changes to improve the integrity of the Medicade and Obamcare program and reduce fraud. But the fight is not over, as a large part of the country benefits both economically and politically from health care.
Merrill Mathews A public policy and political analyst and co-actor of “on the age: the US facing the US Cliff”.
