Undercover investigators using fake identities were able to secure taxpayer-subsidized health insurance under President Barack Obama's healthcare law, congressional investigators said Wednesday, according to The Associated Press.
The weak link seemed to be call centers that handled applications for frazzled consumers unable to get through online, the AP reported.
The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office told a House committee that its investigators were able to get subsidized health care under fake names in 11 out of 18 attempts, even after HealthCare.gov's much maligned online system flagged some applications as problematic, according to the AP.
The GAO is still paying premiums for the policies, even as the Obama administration attempts to verify phony documentation, the AP reported.
Those follow-up verification checks also appeared to need tightening; the GAO said parts of the fake documentation it submitted for two applications actually got through the process, according to the AP.
The GAO audits and investigations chief Seto Bagdoyan told the House Ways and Means Committee that the agency has not drawn any sweeping conclusions from what he called its "preliminary" findings and that a full assessment will take several months, the AP reported.
In the real world, it may be difficult for fraud artists to profit from the nation's newest social program, since government health care subsidies are paid directly to insurance companies, according to the AP.
The GAO's report opened another line of attack for Republican lawmakers who have relentlessly tried to kill the 2010 Affordable Care Act and raised questions about new sorts of flaws in the enrollment system, which experienced computer gridlock when it went live last fall, the AP reported.
GAO also testified that there's still a huge backlog of applications with data discrepancies, even though the administration has resolved some 600,000 cases, according to the AP.
"This is simply not a question of whether one likes the administration's health care law; it's a question of being good stewards of taxpayer dollars," Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., said, the AP reported.
The Obama administration is taking the report seriously and said they "are examining this report carefully and will work with GAO to identify additional strategies to strengthen our verification processes," spokesman Aaron Albright said, according to the AP.
