Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) faux fungibility dig on spending was met with a serious reality check on fraud and “phantom enrollees.”
Amid the political posturing in opposition to the SAVE America Act and funding for the Department of Homeland Security, Schumer saw fit to revisit another failing argument by drawing attention back to the record-breaking government shutdown of the fall.
However, despite his best efforts to criticize Secretary of War Pete Hegseth — swiping at the spoils earned by American military service members in the process — the notion that Pentagon spending should be reallocated to cover Affordable Care Act subsidies was toppled by a policy expert who pointed out there was little government involvement in what the health insurance industry was doing to make “coverage more affordable.”
“We need to reform the ACA, not throw more taxpayer money at it,” Paragon Health Institute President Brian Blase told Fox News Digital, asserting, “… government subsidies don’t make the coverage more affordable. They make it more expensive overall because you have to consider the taxpayer amount.”
The statement came as Democrats jumped at the opportunity to decry details of a reported $93 billion spent in a single month by the Pentagon, including for surf and turf meals for military members, without acknowledging the context of the expense and pretending as if the money could be reallocated to cover subsidies.
For his part, Schumer tried to smear the Secretary of War, “Hegseth spent $93 billion in one month — roughly the cost of extending the ACA tax credits for THREE YEARS. But instead of lowering American’s healthcare costs, Hegseth used millions of taxpayer dollars on fruit baskets, Herman Miller recliners, ice cream machines, Alaskan King Crabs, and a Steinway & Sons grand piano. A true grifter in every sense of the word.”
Hegseth spent $93 billion in one month – roughly the cost of extending the ACA tax credits for THREE YEARS.
But instead of lowering American’s healthcare costs, Hegseth used millions of taxpayer dollars on fruit baskets, Herman Miller recliners, ice cream machines, Alaskan… https://t.co/bdCHRWip3P
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) March 10, 2026
Since the senator brought it up, Blase spoke to the rampant fraud regarding Obamacare, including “phantom” enrollees, while drawing a contrast between the original “very generous” ACA subsidies and those tacked on amid the government’s response to COVID, over which Schumer and his Democrat colleagues refused to fund the government without those being included.
Of the 23 million people enrolled in 2026, Paragon Health suspected 3- to 4 million may be “phantom enrollees.”
“That’s significant improper enrollment,” he said as his health policy research group estimated that many of the 6.4 million enrollees who reported incomes low enough for eligibility likely earned more than they claimed.
Blase contended that the fact that 35% of those enrolled in ACA hadn’t used their coverage in 2024 was a red flag, as “in a normal health insurance market, there’s about 15% of people that don’t use their health insurance in a given year.”
What’s more, because of ongoing increases in premium costs, the burden on taxpayers was only getting worse. “For the typical enrollee, the government is paying 80% of the premium. For lower-income enrollees, the government is paying more than the premium,” he said, noting the “taxpayer share of the premium continues to grow on autopilot.”
“So they’re actually harmed because they get no relief,” he added of the average person insured through their employer, “and they have to pay higher taxes so we can send money directly to health insurance companies, and the money that we send directly to health insurance companies just leads to increased premiums, and it just increases their profits.”
As President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday that put Vice President J.D. Vance at the head of a task force to eliminate fraud, Republicans in Congress urged the Justice Department to recover funds fraudulently doled out through Obamacare. This includes some $94 million in taxpayer subsidies that the Government Accountability Office determined had been issued in a single year on behalf of dead people, exceeding the sum Schumer lamented from that one example alone.
Commenting on Schumer’s rhetoric, White House Senior Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai argued to Fox News Digital, “If Chuck Schumer really cared about healthcare affordability, he would drop the vapid PR stunts and spend his time working with the Administration and Republicans to pass President Trump’s Great Healthcare Plan to lower premiums and slash drug prices.”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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