Trump administration blames fraud crackdown for Obamacare enrollment decline, experts cite soaring premiums

The Trump administration attributes the loss of 2.9 million enrollees from the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) in 2025 to a fraud‑control effort, saying that 5.6 million people were fraudulently enrolled and that the crackdown removed the same number as the drop in coverage. Health‑policy experts dispute the claim, pointing to a broader decline of nearly 3 million people to about 19.2 million, driven by steep premium hikes – an average monthly cost of $178, up 58% from 2025 – and deductible increases of 37% to roughly $3,800 a year.

The administration halted a Biden‑era year‑round enrollment program for low‑income adults in August 2025 and regulators have also removed about 1.5 million people for reasons such as failure to file taxes or dual enrollment in Medicaid. Critics argue that the fraud narrative overstretches the data and that the primary cause of the enrollment plunge is unaffordable insurance costs, leaving many Americans without coverage.