President Trump’s team is finally shining a harsh light on the bloated disaster known as Obamacare exchanges, and Dr. Mehmet Oz isn’t mincing words. The guy running CMS is calling out what looks like a massive racket where tens of millions in subsidies flow to people who shouldn’t be getting them. His point about roughly 35 percent of folks on those plans possibly not belonging there hits at the heart of why this program keeps sucking up cash with no end in sight. This isn’t abstract policy wonkery. It’s your money vanishing into a system riddled with fraud, duplicates, and sloppy oversight that Democrats defended for years.
Dr. Oz Questions Obamacare Integrity, Claims Millions on Exchanges May Be Ineligible
Mehmet Oz raised concerns about the accuracy of enrollment in Affordable Care Act marketplaces, suggesting that a significant share of individuals using Obamacare exchanges may not meet… pic.twitter.com/X2GtMbQhaw
— Washington Eye (@washington_EY) June 2, 2026
The 35 Percent Red Flag That Won’t Go Away
Oz zeroed in on hard CMS data showing that 35 percent of individual market enrollees filed zero claims in 2024. That’s a huge jump from 23 percent back in 2019, and it dwarfs the rates you see in regular employer plans where people actually use the coverage. His take is straightforward: a big chunk of these enrollees might be ghosts in the machine—folks fraudulently signed up, double-dipped across states or programs like Medicaid, or shoved onto exchanges by brokers chasing commissions without the person’s real knowledge or eligibility. He pegged the suspect number at around five to six million people getting fully subsidized plans they don’t qualify for or don’t even know they have.
This lines up with patterns that exploded after the Biden-era enhanced subsidies turned Obamacare into a zero-premium magnet. Suddenly, enrollments ballooned past 24 million, with over 22 million sucking down tax credits. When nearly a third show no medical activity, it raises obvious questions about whether the rolls reflect real eligible Americans or padded numbers that keep the grift going.
The Real Cost Hammering American Taxpayers
The financial bleed is staggering. Independent analyses put improper enrollments—especially people gaming income claims to hit that sweet spot for full subsidies—in the range of six million or more for recent years. Taxpayer costs for this alone top $25 billion annually in wasted premium tax credits. One breakdown put it over $27 billion for 2025, with millions claiming income levels that don’t match reality to lock in free or near-free coverage.
Add in duplicates, unauthorized sign-ups by shady brokers, payments for deceased individuals, and failures to reconcile eligibility, and the total waste climbs higher. The Trump administration has already booted around 1.5 million ineligible cases since 2025, saving nearly $10 billion a year. But that’s just the start. With overall subsidies running into the tens of billions yearly to prop up the exchanges, the 35 percent problem represents a direct hit to working Americans who foot the bill for a program that prioritizes enrollment volume over accuracy.
Why This Mess Exploded and What Clean Up Means
The incentives were rotten from the jump once guardrails came off. Brokers had every reason to push sign-ups, sometimes switching people without consent or fudging details for bigger payouts. States using the federal platform saw the worst spikes, especially in non-expansion areas where the temptation to misreport income was highest. No serious verification, no real follow-up on claims of poverty-level earnings, and suddenly the rolls swelled with questionable entries while legitimate taxpayers watched their dollars vanish.
ACA Fraud Update: CMS has stopped a large-scale corporate scheme that was tricking Americans into buying Obamacare plans and stealing taxpayer dollars.
If you think you’ve been the victim of Fraud, report it at 1-800-318-2596 pic.twitter.com/LwxFGXc18n
— DrOzCMS (@DrOzCMS) February 21, 2026
Oz’s spotlight on the zero-claims cohort cuts through the noise. Healthy people might skip the doctor, sure, but when it hits 35 percent in a system built on subsidies, it screams for scrutiny. The administration’s moves to tighten enrollment, verify income properly, and axe duplicates are long-overdue corrections. This cleanup directly protects the program for those who actually need it while stopping the hemorrhage.
Americans have had enough of government health schemes that promise security but deliver fraud and higher costs. Dr. Oz is exposing the rot, and the reckoning is here. Taxpayers deserve exchanges that serve citizens, not phantom rolls that enrich the connected. The sooner the deadwood gets cleared, the sooner sanity returns to American health care.