Hundreds of thousands of Americans are being stripped of their Affordable Care Act (ACA) health plans amid a Trump administration crackdown on alleged fraud, raising immediate questions for more than 16,000 D.C. residents who rely on the marketplace for coverage.
Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday that about 750,000 people were fraudulently enrolled, and roughly 419,000 will face additional verification as the administration examines eligibility for federally subsidized health insurance.
“These programs are deserving, they’re important, but they’re not going to exist unless we stop the fraud,” Vance said at the White House. “We are actually making sure that people receiving Obamacare subsidies are actually entitled to receive them.”
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services canceled about 315,000 policies in August, affecting approximately 760,000 people, citing unverified citizenship or immigration status and suspected fraudulent enrollment. The administration also barred 569 insurance brokers from participating after officials found what they described as implausible application activity, including applications that lacked Social Security numbers.
Independent health-policy researchers dispute the administration’s portrayal of fraud as the primary explanation for the loss of ACA coverage. KFF reported that marketplace enrollment fell from 22.1 million in 2025 to 19.2 million in February, while consumers faced steep premium increases after enhanced tax credits expired.
Ben Sommers, a Harvard health economist and former federal health official, told FactCheck.org that no clear evidence supported the administration’s claim that the enrollment decline was entirely due to eliminating improper coverage. However, evidence of fraud exists. The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found weaknesses in federal safeguards and at least 160,000 marketplace applications with likely unauthorized broker changes in 2024, while warning that its tests could not be generalized to the entire ACA population.
Brian Blase, president of the conservative Paragon Health Institute, takes a sharply different view, arguing that lax verification, generous subsidies and broker incentives produced widespread improper enrollment and billions of dollars in improper federal spending.
D.C. Residents and ACA
Meanwhile, no figures have been released showing how many D.C. residents, if any, are included in those cancellations or have been targeted for additional verification.
The District has a relatively small ACA individual marketplace, yet coverage remains a significant expense for people who buy their own insurance. About 16,100 residents enrolled in qualified health plans for 2026, representing approximately 2.3% of the District’s population.
Most are not newcomers. Returning consumers accounted for 78.1% of D.C. enrollment this year, while new customers made up 21.9%.
Federal financial assistance reaches a much smaller share of ACA customers in Washington than it does nationwide. In 2026, about 18.8% of D.C. enrollees received an advance premium tax credit, a cost-sharing reduction, or both. Nationally, 86.7% received such assistance.
For District residents who qualify for premium tax credits, the average credit was $480 per month this year. Across the D.C. marketplace, advance premium tax credits lowered the average monthly premium from $815 to $725.
Vance estimated that the administration’s removals and additional verification will save taxpayers $2.2 billion. The administration says unauthorized enrollment, duplicate coverage, improperly awarded tax credits, and questionable activity by insurance brokers have allowed billions of federal dollars to be paid to people who were not eligible.
CMS estimates that improper ACA enrollment could cost the federal government up to $6.6 billion for the 2026 plan year. The administration has also frozen new broker registrations through February 2027 as it investigates unauthorized enrollments and tax-credit payments.
Insurance brokers have supported action against proven fraud while objecting to restrictions they say could prevent legitimate agents from helping people obtain coverage. The National Association of Benefits and Insurance Professionals has argued for targeted enforcement rather than a blanket moratorium on new broker registrations.
D.C. residents have another coverage option that sets the District apart from most states. The Healthy DC Plan provides health insurance to qualifying residents ages 21 through 64 who generally have household incomes between 138% and 200% of the federal poverty level and do not qualify for Medicaid or other coverage. The plan has no monthly premium and no out-of-pocket costs for covered services.
The next individual and family enrollment period through DC Health Link runs from Nov. 1 through Jan. 31. Residents who select a plan by Dec. 15 can have coverage begin on Jan. 1. Those enrolling from Dec. 16 through Jan. 15 receive coverage beginning Feb. 1, while selections made from Jan. 16 through Jan. 31 take effect on March 1.
Officials said current customers should also receive a fall notice from DC Health Link with updated eligibility information and identifying the plan they will be automatically renewed into if they do not choose another plan by Dec. 15. DC Health Link advises residents to review the information and report anything that needs to be corrected.
