GAO Audit: Obamacare Covering Bogus Enrollees with Taxpayer Dollars

This is from Virgil Dickson at Modern Healthcare:

A Government Accountability Office report that revealed HealthCare.gov lacks the ability to verify user information is drawing both support and criticism. 

GAO officials posed as phony applicants for coverage on HealthCare.gov and were able to get subsidies two years in a row, even though they provided fake information.

The findings raise questions about whether HealthCare.gov is able to detect fraud, according to the GAO. ...

"Not only does this negligence enhance the likelihood for abuse of taxpayer dollars, but it also calls into question the legitimacy of the health law's enrollment numbers and challenges the integrity of the website's security checks," Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said in a statement. ...

“It is hard to believe that our government is so inept at implementing basic quality-control procedures,” said Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute, a research organization dedicated to cybersecurity, data protection and privacy. “A commercial organization would last one nanosecond if it operated at this level of incompetence.” 

"Once again these findings highlight the fact that insufficient controls have been built into the program. I am afraid that this is just another indicator that HealthCare.gov is flawed and that the administration has failed to implement the appropriate safeguards to protect sensitive data and prevent misuse," said Michael Gregg, chief operating officer of IT security firm Superior Solutions....