Medicare and Medicaid chief Dr. Mehmet Oz has pointed to people who never used their Affordable Care Act coverage as evidence of fraud. "About 35% of current people on the Obamacare system ... had never used the program," Oz said at a press event, according to KFF Health News. He then added, "So we know there is fraud."
His own agency has drawn a more careful line. In a September rule, CMS wrote that "zero utilization is not, on its face, indicative of an unauthorized enrollment," as noted by Health Affairs Forefront. In the same passage, though, CMS called it notable that 34% of federal marketplace plans had no use in 2024, compared with 23% of unsubsidized plans sold outside the marketplace.
