Speaking at a press conference in Washington, Vance, who heads a government task force on health‑care fraud, said the discovery of fraudulent or nonexistent enrollments on public exchanges would lead to the removal of 315,000 enrollment records covering about 760,000 people, and that an additional 419,000 enrollments will undergo verification to confirm eligibility.

Vance was accompanied by Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and other senior officials, who underscored the administration’s broader crackdown on fraud across federal health programs.

The announcement also included a six‑month suspension of new agents or brokers who sign up consumers for ACA coverage, a group the administration says is responsible for a disproportionate share of the fraud it uncovered.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, roughly 19.2 million Americans are enrolled in ACA marketplace plans as of early 2026, a figure that swelled during the COVID‑19 pandemic when expanded subsidies were made available under the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act.

Policy experts expressed concern about the speed and transparency of the cuts. Cynthia Cox of the Kaiser Family Foundation acknowledged that fraudulent enrollments should be removed but questioned whether the process used was appropriate and whether legitimate beneficiaries might be mistakenly stripped of coverage. Former CMS official Ellen Montz noted that while fraud elimination is necessary, the lack of detail on how individuals were identified raises red flags.

Democratic lawmakers condemned the move. Representative Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts warned that the action would exacerbate an already dire health‑care crisis, adding that the administration’s policies have already driven premiums higher and made coverage harder to obtain.

A December report from the Government Accountability Office, which covertly tested the marketplace with 24 fictitious applicants, found that most fake applications were approved for subsidized coverage, suggesting that fraud risks exist but leaving the overall scale unclear. The White House directed the Associated Press to Vance’s team for comment on broader affordability plans, but neither the vice president’s office nor CMS responded to requests for comment.