WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Opportunities abound to defraud the US Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, because many of the health marketplaces do not bother checking the identification and bona fides of applicants, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.
“The GAO tested application and enrollment controls… through the federal Health Insurance Marketplace… and two… state marketplaces,” the report read on Thursday. “Although of these ten fictitious applications failed the initial identity-checking process, all ten were subsequently approved.”
The GAO undercover agents operated in the states of New Jersey and North Dakota testing the US federal system, and in two selected state
“Four applications used Social Security numbers that, according to the Social Security Administration, have never been issued, such as numbers starting with ‘000’,” the GAO said.
Officials from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services in the states of California, Kentucky and North Dakota told the investigators that the marketplaces and Medicaid offices only inspect for supporting documentation that has obviously been altered, the report explained.
“Thus, if the documentation submitted does not show such signs, it would not be questioned for authenticity,” the report added.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates the cost of subsidies and related spending under Obamacare at $60 billion for fiscal year 2016, the GAO pointed out.
The US Government Accountability Office is an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayer money.
