A new report warns that stronger safeguards against fraud are needed in the Obamacare exchanges to prevent bad actors who serve as agents and brokers in the federal marketplace from making unauthorized plan enrollments and changes to get compensation from health insurance providers.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Monday released a report showing that the number of consumer complaints about unauthorized plan enrollments and changes grew more than fourfold from 2023 to 2025, rising from a combined 66,548 to 299,604 in that period.
The review found that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which maintains the federal Obamacare exchange, had insufficient controls to protect consumers from unauthorized activity by unscrupulous agents and brokers.
Among the issues it identified were weak processes to ensure consumer consent for agent or broker actions, a lack of restrictions ensuring that only the agent or broker associated with a consumer's enrollment can access the consumer's exchange records, and CMS not informing consumers of all actions taken by agents and brokers.