Probe: Bogus enrollees kept getting 'Obamacare'

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR

WASHINGTON (AP) — Phony applicants that investigators signed up last year under President Barack Obama's health care law got automatically re-enrolled for 2015. Some were rewarded with even bigger taxpayer subsidies for their insurance premiums, a congressional probe has found.

The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office says 11 counterfeit characters that its investigators created last year were automatically re-enrolled by HealthCare.gov, even though most had unresolved documentation issues. In Obama's terms, they got to keep the coverage they had.

Six of those later were flagged and sent termination notices. But GAO said it was able to get five of them reinstated by calling HealthCare.gov's consumer service center. That seemed to be a weak link in the system.

The five bogus beneficiaries who were reinstated even got their monthly subsidies bumped up a bit, although GAO did not ask for it. The case of the sixth fake enrollee who appealed was under review.

FULL story at link.



FILE - In this Nov. 12, 2014 file photo, the HealthCare.gov website, where people can buy health insurance, is displayed on a laptop screen in Portland, Ore. Phony applicants that investigators signed up last year under President Barack Obama’s health care law got automatically re-enrolled for 2015 and some were rewarded with even bigger taxpayer subsidies for their insurance premiums, a congressional probe has found. The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) says 11 counterfeit characters that its investigators created last year were automatically re-enrolled for this year by HealthCare.gov. They got to keep the coverage they had, although not legally entitled to benefits. (AP Photo/Don Ryan, File)

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/2cd1ae9804b545388f993bc0747c441e/apnewsbreak-bogus-enrollees-kept-getting-obamacare

[Agnosticsherbet]

1. So did bogus people go to see a doctor.

[stopwastingmymoney]

4. And, did the bogus people pay their premiums? nt

[Agnosticsherbet]

6. This would be a fraud by insurance companies.

They get the money.

[Sunlei]

8. most people /w the bronze lvl insurance pay NO premium.Federal gov pays directly to Insurance Corp.

[HassleCat]

2. That's good

It's just like a private insurance company.

[Thor_MN]

3. Isn't that fraud?

Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, did knowing and willingly conspire to commit fraud in 2014, namely the attempted theft of healthcare benefits by use of an unknown number of false identities.

[Igel]

14. In a sense.

But if you want to test a system to see how well it discovers fraud you feed it false data. Some is more obviously false than others.

The take-away message we're supposed to get is that the exchanges, or at least the ones mentioned, aren't set up to discover fraud. I have to assume that these were full-ride enrollees; I doubt that any premiums were paid on their behalf. (I suspect, also, that the system caught a number of fraudulent enrollees. Just not these. I don't assume that since there no info on this presented it means it didn't happen.)

I suspect we're also supposed to conclude that perhaps the system is set up to maximize the number of enrollees by any means, not ensure that just those eligible enroll. i don't know that I disagree with this: the government was motivated to just let deadlines get extended and penalties waived in order to get people enrolled, whatever the letter of the law may have said. (Even then, the CBO reports that the ACA will come in under budget, partially because the number of enrollees was smaller than expected.)

[cynzke]

18. A person would have to be PRETTY STUPID

To think they could benefit from this. The insurance companies get the money and you still have to pay your out of pocket expenses before receiving benefits. THEN at tax time the following year, the IRS is looking for your tax filing. What are you going to do then, file a fraudulent return and compound the criminal charges? Great thinking!

[Yo_Mama]

19. GAO's function in government is to audit its operations.

No, it's not fraud.

[rickford66]

5. So 11 fake people didn't see a doctor.

Not a bad trade for millions to actually see a doctor.

[Sunlei]

7. so Insurance Corps kept the thousands in Federal Gov. subsities they got for each 'sting' account?

[blackspade]

9. So? This is the big story?

[rladdi]

10. SO WHAT?

WHATS THE BIG DEAL ABOUT THIS?

[Proud Liberal Dem]

12. Well

Republicans would, of course, say that it just means that we need to REPEAL OBAMACARE RIGHT F***ING NOW!!!!



Seriously,

[groundloop]

13. Oh, you can bet GOPers and Faux 'news' will make it a big deal

Just like how they want to kill off Welfare because of a small percentage of fraud, just like how they want to kill off disability insurance because of a small percentage of fraud, etc. Unfortunately a lot of people listen to their nonsense and buy their crap that these programs need to be killed.

The real solution, of course, is to put safeguards into the system to prevent fraud (but that would involve investing money in these social programs - nope, can't have that) and prosecuting those who commit the fraud.

[jmowreader]

16. And how they don't want to kill off tax deductions that benefit only the rich...

even though there's a LARGE percentage of fraud.

[Sunlei]

11. perhaps GAO tested the 'automatically re-enrolled' feature. I let my insurance auto-re-enroll

Didn't have to do anything to keep my Obamacare insurance except keep paying the premium bill Humana insurance Corp. sends each month.

what a huge relief to not have to worry about being dropped from insurance

[winstars]

15. 11???

[displacedtexan]

17. My first reaction, as well.

And 11 turned out to be 5.

5.