The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud are cracking down on improper healthcare subsidy payments, canceling government assistance for 189,000 individuals.
HHS & the Anti-Fraud Task Force have cancelled Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies for individuals already enrolled in Medicare or Medicaid, including some people claimed to be deceased.
According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), consumers cannot receive ACA subsidies if they are enrolled or eligible for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
To prevent healthcare fraud, CMS and health care exchanges use Periodic Data Matching (PDM) to cross-check enrollment records against external public databases.
Biden Administration Suspended PDM Process
“During President [Donald] Trump’s first term, CMS strengthened Medicaid and CHIP [periodic data] matching and required those checks at least twice a year,” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) said. “The Biden administration suspended – they paused – those checks, and predictably, once they paused them, the fraud went off the charts.”
Trump Administration Resumes PDM; Discovers 551,000 Cases
According to RFK Jr., in 2025, the second Trump administration resumed PDM checks and discovered 551,000 cases of duplicate Medicaid and ACA enrollment.
A White House official told the Daily Wire that identifying and repealing these cases saved taxpayers $4.4 billion in 2025.
This most recent effort will save taxpayers more than $1.5 billion annually.
RFK Jr. Affirms People Won't Lose Coverage
“We’re not cutting people from Medicaid or Medicare or Obamacare or medical coverage,” Secretary RFK Jr. said during the CMS Fraud Press Conference. “The people who are double enrolled – or people who are deceased, for that matter – are not gaining anything from that double enrollment; they don’t even know it, in most cases, that they’re double enrolled.”
Secretary RFK Jr. affirmed that HHS and the Anti-Fraud Task Force are tackling fraud done by insurance brokers, managed care organizations, and insurance companies, not the individuals.
