Eleven out of 12 fake applications by congressional investigators got through a verification process for taxpayer-subsidized health insurance under President Barack Obama's law, the Government Accountability Office said Tuesday. The agency's findings are contained in testimony to be delivered at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing Wednesday.
The nonpartisan GAO launched the sting to check how well the Obamacare process checks for counterfeit applications, the Associated Press reported. After undercover investigators got subsidized health care under fake names in 11 out of 18 attempts, the Obama administration is attempting to verify phony documentation even as the GAO is currently paying premiums for the policies.
"The federal marketplace approved coverage for 11 of our 12 fictitious applicants who initially applied online, or by telephone," Seto Bagdoyan, who directs GAO's Forensic Audits and Investigative Service, said in testimony obtained by NBC News. He will be testifying Wednesday that even though the administration has resolved some 600,000 cases, there is still a huge backlog of applications with data discrepancies.
The GAO operatives made up 18 applications - 12 applied online or by telephone, and six started out looking for in-person help. All were completely false, with fake incomes, fake identities, invalid Social Security numbers, and false citizenship or legal residence, NBC News reported. Only one out of the group of 12 was denied an application. "For one application, the marketplace denied coverage because GAO's fictitious applicant did not provide a Social Security number as part of the test," Bagdoyan said.
The other 11, however, got through and received federal subsidies to help pay for their health insurance. "The total amount of these credits for the 11 approved applications is about $2,500 monthly or about $30,000 annually. We also obtained cost-sharing reduction subsidies, according to marketplace representatives, in at least nine of the 11 cases," Bagdoyan said.
Although the Obama administration has claimed to have blocked six of the GAO's fake online applications through eligibility checks built into computer systems at HealthCare.gov, the GAO stated that its undercover agents found a way around that, and were able to enroll anyway. "We are examining this report carefully and will work with GAO to identify additional strategies to strengthen our verification processes," administration spokesman Aaron Albright said. At least on paper, fraudsters risk prosecution and heavy fines.
The health law is rife with "incompetence, waste and the potential for fraud," Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, a Michigan Republican.
"House Republicans have voted some 50 times to repeal or scale back Obama's top domestic accomplishment, the sweeping health care overhaul that is currently providing coverage to an estimated 15 million people, through a combination of subsidized private insurance and expanded Medicaid," the AP reported.
On Tuesday, two federal appeals courts handed out conflicted rulings regarding a federal regulation implementing key subsidies of President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law, with one court invalidating some of them and the other upholding all of them.
