In an interview with NBC News<\/a> in March, Oz claimed that some of the enrollment increase \u2014 around 4 million to 5 million \u2014 has been driven by fraud, particularly by insurance brokers, who help people find and sign up for health plans. He said some brokers enrolled people without their knowledge to collect commission fees from insurers.<\/p>\n In other cases, Oz said, people\u2019s incomes made them ineligible for receiving subsidies, they had mistakenly signed up for duplicate plans or they did not exist at all.<\/p>\n \u201cIn fact, the fact that we have 23 million makes me think we have too many participants in the ACA,\u201d Oz said at the time. \u201cIt\u2019s too high of a number.\u201d<\/p>\n Oz reiterated his claim during the news conference Tuesday, saying, \u201cObamacare had 10 million enrollees from 2015 to 2020. During Covid, it went up to 22 million people.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cSo the question becomes, what happened?\u201d he said. \u201cWell, the guardrails were weakened, and the prior administration decided not to enforce the weakened guardrails.\u201d <\/p>\n Oz said the administration looked at a combination of factors it considered suspicious.<\/p>\n The people had been enrolled with the help of a broker or agent, had never filed a claim, had their entire monthly premium covered by federal tax credits, and either had no Social Security number or immigration documents that the CMS could verify in real time.<\/p>\n \u201cWe call them phantoms, because we believe most of them don\u2019t exist or they had no idea they had coverage,\u201d he said. \u201cWe believe that because we\u2019ve been writing them, telexing them, FedExing, whatever we possibly can do to get in touch with them. They won\u2019t answer.\u201d <\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear whether the enrollees who lost their coverage were paying their premiums. <\/p>\n Health policy experts say fraud exists in the ACA, as well as the entire U.S. healthcare system. In 2025, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that 2.3 million people<\/a> were improperly receiving enhanced tax credits.<\/p>\n Experts, however, question how widespread the fraud in the program is \u2014 and whether the administration is overstating its role in the ACA\u2019s enrollment increases.<\/p>\n![\"JD](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/260922-vance-oz-ch-1331-1892a0.jpg\")
Vice President J.D. Vance, accompanied by Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Dr. Mehmet Oz in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 22, 2026.Andrew Harnik \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n