Auditors Ran an Obamacare Test and Uncovered Just How Bad Socialism is Already Breaking America

Joe Biden let millions of Americans enroll in Obamacare just by stating their income, no proof required.

A new investigation from the Paragon Health Institute just put a hard number on that gamble.

What government auditors found when they tried to break the system should make every American furious.

Paragon Health Institute Puts a Number on the Ghost Enrollee Problem

The Paragon Health Institute released its findings on August 26, and the numbers are staggering.

Researchers Brian Blase, Liam Sigaud and Mark Howell determined that 14.3 million people – 34 percent of all Obamacare enrollees in 2024 – were ineligible for the coverage they received.

That improper enrollment cost federal taxpayers roughly $65 billion in a single year.

Of that total, 5.1 million people were improperly enrolled in ACA exchange plans, costing $22.3 billion.

Another 9.2 million people were improperly signed up for Medicaid expansion, costing $32.9 billion more.

California topped the list at $13.2 billion in improper spending.

Florida – a state that never even expanded Medicaid – still managed to burn through $10.5 billion on bogus exchange enrollees.

Paragon's researchers called their own numbers conservative.

This is not some one-year accident either.

The report found improper exchange enrollment jumped more than 26 percent from 2024 to 2025, climbing to an estimated 6.5 million people.

Brokers Cash In While Washington Looks the Other Way

The mechanism behind the fraud is not complicated, and it is not new.

Paragon's researchers explained it plainly: insurers get paid whether or not the enrollee ever uses the plan, and brokers get their commission the moment someone signs up.

Nobody in that chain has any reason to check whether the person actually exists.

Biden-era officials made it worse by expanding self-attestation of income and tolerating weak pre-enrollment verification, according to the report.

They also pushed automatic re-enrollment, which let ghost enrollees stay on the books year after year without anyone asking a single question.

The Government Accountability Office tested the system itself in December 2025.

GAO submitted 24 fictitious applications with fake Social Security numbers and unverifiable identities.

Twenty-three of them got approved – a 96 percent success rate for pretend people.

GAO auditors also found more than $21 billion in advance premium tax credits from 2023 with no evidence the IRS ever reconciled the numbers.

Oregon's improper Medicaid expansion rate hit 57 percent back in 2019, proving this scam predates the pandemic-era subsidy binge that supercharged it.

Kennedy and Oz Move Against the Fraud Network

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz are now pointing to this fraud as the real reason Obamacare enrollment has been falling.

CMS estimates that roughly 35 percent of marketplace enrollments – as many as 5 to 6 million people – may be illegitimate.

Oz's agency has already sent notices of intent to 100 marketplace agents accused of repeatedly submitting applications missing Social Security numbers and other basic identifying information.

A separate HHS review found 2.6 million improper or phantom enrollments still on the books, including more than 1 million submitted without a Social Security number at all.

Kennedy and Oz argue the enrollment drop under President Trump is not about rising premiums – it is Washington finally checking IDs.

What This Scam Actually Costs You

Every one of those ghost enrollees is a real bill, and you are the one paying it.

Democrats spent years insisting Obamacare needed more subsidies, more automatic renewals and less paperwork, and this is what "less paperwork" bought America – a system where insurers profit off fictional patients and brokers get rich signing up people who do not exist.

Fourteen million ineligible enrollees did not slip through some tiny crack in the system.

They walked through a door Biden's administration propped wide open on purpose.

Brian Blase's team laid out the incentive structure in black and white – government pays regardless, brokers cash in regardless, and nobody upstream has any reason to slow down and check.

That is not bureaucratic sloppiness.

That is a taxpayer-funded gravy train running at full speed for four straight years.

Kennedy and Oz now have the receipts, the GAO has the fictitious-application data to back it up, and the only question left is how many of the 100 flagged brokers actually lose their license instead of just a strongly worded letter.

Sources:

• Ireland Owens, "Obamacare Improper Enrollment Cost US Taxpayers $65,000,000,000 In Just One Year, New Report Reveals," Daily Caller, August 26, 2026.
• Brian Blase, Liam Sigaud, and Mark Howell, "Obamacare Enrollment Abuse Update: $65 Billion Cost in 2024," Paragon Health Institute, August 26, 2026.
• Paragon Health Institute, "GAO Probe Finds ACA at High Risk for Fraud," Paragon Health Institute, December 3, 2025.
• Fox Business Staff, "Trump Administration Readying Crackdown on Alleged Obamacare Fraud," Fox Business, 2026.
• Fierce Healthcare Staff, "HHS Officials Say Fraud Crackdown Behind ACA Enrollment Declines," Fierce Healthcare, August 2026.