CMS Ends Subsidies for 189,000 ACA Enrollments

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has removed or ended subsidies for 189,000 Affordable Care Act enrollments flagged as duplicate coverage or linked to people recorded as deceased, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said October 14. The agency’s action includes a 30-day process for affected enrollees or estates to challenge the findings. Kennedy said the action is expected to prevent $738 million in improper subsidy payments in 2026 and $1.5 billion annually thereafter. Those figures are government projections, not audited savings. He said a data match does not by itself prove fraud and that the process is intended to correct mistakes as well as identify improper payments. CMS Deputy Administrator Peter Nelson said the agency had removed subsidies this year for 58,000 people who were also covered by Medicare and ended 11,000 plans for people recorded as deceased. Nelson projected that about 3,500 additional deceased-enrollee plans would be ended by the end of October. The agency has not published a full breakdown of the 189,000 total, and the figures provided do not account for all of it.