After booting 760K off ACA health plans, the Trump administration adds some people back

Late last month, the Trump administration announced that it had cut 760,000 people from the Affordable Care Act rolls, claiming fraud and improper enrollments and touting billions in potential taxpayer savings. Check out the NPR Politics Podcast for daily analysis of the biggest news out of Washington, D.C. Not all of those kicked off were fraudulently enrolled, KFF Health News has learned.

Insurance industry sources said the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has reinstated a small number of people whose coverage should not have been canceled. More could follow in the coming weeks if enrollees discover they are uninsured when they go to use their coverage. Still, the sweep was long overdue, say supporters such as Brian Blase, whose Paragon Health Institute has supplied many of the sometimes controversial findings cited by those who allege widespread enrollment fraud in the ACA.

But other policy experts question how many legitimate consumers were caught in the dragnet, perhaps because they failed to open a letter from their insurer or answer a phone call. Questions continue to swirl, even as a second phase of the anti-fraud effort is underway. An additional 419,000 sign-ups are being scrutinized.

Insurers must let CMS know how many of those enrollees don't respond to outreach efforts by "around mid-to-late November, after the midterm elections," said David Merritt, senior vice president of external affairs at the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. He confirmed that some BCBS members are among those who have been reinstated. He also said that CMS has an expedited review process for those who discover they have been improperly disenrolled.

Overall, however, the administration is providing few details about the cancellations, such as how robust the outreach was to those it targeted, how long it takes for people to get reinstated after discovering their coverage was wrongly canceled, and how many such cancellations have been reversed. "It may be true that some of those enrollments were not authorized, but it can be equally true that people got lost in the shuffle and have a valid enrollment. Without more information, it's almost impossible to tell," said Katie Keith, a director of the Center for Health Policy and the Law at Georgetown Law.

"That they are not being very transparent is telling too," she said of the administration. The enrollment cut comes as part of a larger Republican strategy to focus on fraud in government programs, including Medicaid and hospice care, which polls show resonates with GOP voters. At an Oct. 14 press conference, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F.