Today, Congressman Diane Black (R-TN-06) issued the following statement upon passage of her legislation, H.R. 2775, the No Subsidies Without Verification Act:

“Protecting American taxpayers from fraud and abuse is not a partisan issue,” said Congressman Black. “That is why I am so pleased that this commonsense bill passed today with bipartisan support. Until we can repeal Obamacare, we need to protect the American taxpayers from the staggering amounts of potential fraud and abuse in the Obamacare exchanges.  This bill would do just that by prohibiting the Administration from carelessly doling out taxpayer-funded subsidies on the basis of self-attestation. Only those who are truly eligible for taxpayer subsidies should receive them.”

“Unfortunately, because of this Administration’s clandestine rule change over the 4th of July holiday, this is not currently the case, and it has been estimated that as much as $250 billion of hard earned American taxpayer dollars could be given out in fraudulent Obamacare subsidy claims. I applaud the work of my colleagues in the House to pass this important measure, and I urge the Senate to swiftly put this to a vote and send it to the President.”


Background:

On July 5^th, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released more than 600 pages of Obamacare regulations which included an announcement that the government would no longer verify that each applicant for the exchange subsidies are actually qualified for the assistance.  Instead, the Administration would rely on self-attestation and sample audits to “protect” the integrity of this new $1 trillion entitlement program.  HHS later announced a change in this policy and stated it would now extend the sample population to 100%.