GOP senators press Burwell on GAO report

Republican Senators are pressing Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell to take action in response to a Government Accountability Officer report that found problems with the healthcare law’s enrollment system.

GAO officials were able to sign 11 fictitious people up for the health exchanges using fake immigration and income documents, and were able to receive government subsidies on their plans.

{mosads}Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) in a Wednesday letter to Burwell said the incident was troubling and highlights problems with the enrollment system.

They asked what actions Burwell intends to take to address the findings.

The GAO report is only the latest bad news for the HHS application verification system.

Several HHS Office of Inspector General reports have found problems with the system, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has admitted a million people may be at risk of paying back a portion of their subsidies because they were ineligible for them.

The administration argues that despite problems verifying people’s income and citizenship status when the exchanges were launched, they are catching up and fixing the problems.