Chuck Schumer slams Pentagon spending while pushing ACA subsidies

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s push to revive expired enhanced Obamacare tax credit by contrasting their price with Pentagon spending is colliding with contemporary scrutiny of the Affordable Care Act, as coverage specialists warn this system is riddled with improper enrollments, fraud vulnerabilities and rising taxpayer prices.

“We need to reform the ACA, not throw more taxpayer money at it,” Brian Blase, president of the well being coverage analysis group Paragon Health Institute, stated. He added that “government subsidies don’t make the coverage more affordable. They make it more expensive overall because you have to consider the taxpayer amount.”

Blase spoke to Fox News Digital this month after Schumer made a viral swipe at Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth for spending $93.4 billion within the closing month of the final fiscal 12 months, together with thousands and thousands of {dollars} in luxurious meals, resembling king crab, for the troops.

The New York Democrat seized on the Pentagon spending determine to make a political level that the identical quantity may cowl extending enhanced ACA tax credit for 3 years, though protection funds should not instantly fungible with Obamacare subsidies.

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“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,” Schumer posted to X final week.

Blase argued that the ACA is fraught with expletives and “phantom” coils on prime of confirmed fraud for which the Department of Justice has secured convictions, and that extra funding was not the reply. The ACA’s premium subsidies are financed by the federal authorities, and advance funds of these tax credit are made on eligible enrollees’ behalf on to insurers to scale back month-to-month premiums.

A whole lot of Democrats have “conflated” the problem of extending enhanced ACA subsidies, however the “original Obamacare subsidies remain in place, and they are very generous,” Blase stated, noting that these authentic subsidies are everlasting and in place by statute and that the improved subsidies are merely a expensive bonus.

The enhanced subsidies, launched in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, made some market plans free for sure low-income enrollees. Paragon Health estimated that greater than 6.4 million enrollees might have reported incomes low sufficient to qualify though many seemingly earned extra.

“That’s significant improper enrollment,” Blase stated.

About 23 million folks enrolled in healthcare plans within the ACA market by 2026, however an estimated 3 to 4 million enrollees are seemingly “phantom enrollees,” Paragon Health discovered, describing them as those that are both fictitious or have no idea they’re enrolled in a plan. Blase stated “unscrupulous” brokers and brokers, who’re incentivized to enroll folks in healthcare plans, can enroll them with out their consent.

Using knowledge launched by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services final 12 months, Paragon Health found that from 2021 to 2024, a rising variety of ACA enrollees by no means used their well being plans. In 2024, 35% by no means used their protection.

Blase stated that determine was suspicious, noting that “in a normal health insurance market, there’s about 15% of people who don’t use their health insurance in a given year.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks in the course of the House and Senate Democrats’ joint information convention on DHS funding negotiations within the US Capitol on Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc by way of Getty Images)

Democrats and Republicans have been locked in a standoff final 12 months over extending the ACA subsidies, a combat that helped gasoline a six-week authorities shutdown. Democrats have cited sharp will increase in premium prices for people as they proceed to push to increase the credit.

Blase stated that even with out the enrollment issues, this system is massively burdensome to taxpayers as a result of insurers perpetually increase their premium prices.

“For the typical enrollee, the government is paying 80% of the premium. For lower income enrollees, the government is paying more than the premium,” Blase stated, including that the “taxpayer share of the premium continues to grow on autopilot.”

He added that the typical particular person has medical health insurance via their employer.

“So they’re actually harmed because they get no relief, 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 them to increase premiums, and it just increases their profits,” Blase stated.

On prime of improper enrollment and the broader taxpayer burden, the DOJ has ramped up its efforts to fight fraud within the ACA market lately and targeted on unauthorized enrollment schemes.

DOJ prosecutors secured high-profile 20-year prison sentences for 2 insurance coverage executives in February after they have been convicted by a jury of orchestrating a $233 million ACA fraud scheme by enrolling susceptible folks with out their information.

TO review by the Government Accountability Office discovered fraud dangers persist within the ACA’s advance tax credit score program. In undercover testing for 2025, the ACA market accredited protection for many of GAO’s made-up candidates, and the watchdog discovered that 18 of 20 fictitious enrollees remained actively coated as of September 2025 and acquired greater than $10,000 a month in subsidies. The report additionally flagged broader vulnerabilities, together with tens of 1000’s of Social Security numbers used for a number of enrollments.

War Secretary Pete Hegseth. (Omar Havana/Getty Images)

Schumer’s jab to reallocate the Pentagon’s end-of-year spending comes as protection spending is traditionally modest in comparison with previous a long time, representing a small fraction of the United States’ gross home product at 3.7%, based on an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Extending the controversial ACA tax credit would additionally come because the rising nationwide debt is ready to eclipse about $39 trillion this month.

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White House spokesperson Kush Desai known as Schumer’s remarks a “vapid PR stunt” in a press release 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,” Desai stated.

Schumer’s workplace didn’t reply to Fox News Digital’s request for touch upon Blase’s remarks.

Social media customers swiftly panned Schumer for the

The Pentagon’s September prices almost mirrored the $79 billion Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spent in September 2024. Spending on the finish of the fiscal 12 months has been notoriously excessive throughout administrations as businesses face strain to “use it or lose it” to justify the subsequent 12 months’s funds.

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Matthew Galeotti, former head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, joined by Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Mehmet Oz, delivers remarks throughout a press convention asserting the biggest healthcare fraud case in historical past, on the DOJ on June 30, 2025, in Washington, DC (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

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After uncovering thousands and thousands of {dollars} in misuse of federal funds in Minnesota, the Trump administration additionally established a brand new National Fraud Enforcement Division throughout the DOJ this 12 months as a part of a “whole-of-government” crackdown on welfare fraud nationwide. This division is ready to focus on Minnesota’s and different states’ social service applications seeking fraud.