Tag: gao

The unaffordable Affordable Care Act

The Affordable Care Act—Obamacare—was passed without a single Republican vote, and since, Democrats have been doing their worst to try to convince the public Republicans are to blame for it. That’s because it was never affordable and has required untold billions to prop it up. One might blame John McCain, who was the sole Republican, Trump Derangement Syndrome, vote that prevented repeal of Obamacare.

Americans have eventually tumbled to Obamacare’s reality: the insurance is outlandishly expensive, costs far too much for miserly benefits, and is breaking the taxpayer bank. Now, in a revelation that surprises no one, it’s rife with fraud too.  

The report said insurance companies collected $94 million for people who were dead, one piece of what the Congressional Budget Office estimates to be $27 billion in annual Obamacare fraud, according to the National Pulse.

The GAO report said 58,000 Social Security numbers linked to advanced premium tax credits matched numbers in the Social Security death data. More than 7,000 individuals were found to have died before their coverage even began.

In one case, one Social Security number was used to receive 125 insurance policies covering 26,000 days — the equivalent of 71 years of coverage.

In acts of unusual competence, the GAO sent in fake applications without any of the usual documentation necessary for social security numbers, income and citizenship, and again, to no one’s surprise, were approved for Obamacare subsidies in 2024 and 2025.

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Federal Watchdog Reveals Rampant Obamacare Fraud; 90% Of Bad-Doc Applicants Approved In Undercover Test

A new bombshell report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) details a long-running vulnerability in the Affordable Care Act exchanges, showing that weak verification controls continue to expose federal subsidies to significant fraud and abuse. 

“Preliminary results from GAO’s ongoing covert testing suggest fraud risks in the advance premium tax credit (APTC) persist,” the report reads. “The federal Marketplace approved coverage for nearly all of GAO’s fictitious applicants in plan years 2024 and 2025, generally consistent with similar GAO testing in plan years 2014 through 2016.”

According to the report, GAO conducted undercover tests by creating fictitious applicants with fake identities and fraudulent or never-issued Social Security numbers to see how the federal Marketplace would respond. Over the past two years, 90% of those fake applicants were approved for subsidized coverage despite lacking required documentation. In plan year 2024, all four of GAO’s fabricated applicants were approved and received about $2,350 per month in subsidies paid to insurers, even though they failed to provide proof of Social Security numbers, citizenship, or income. GAO scaled up the test for 2025 to 20 fake applicants; 18 were still enrolled as of September 2025, generating more than $10,000 per month in subsidies

More broadly, GAO’s preliminary analyses identified vulnerabilities related to potential SSN misuse and likely unauthorized enrollment changes in federal Marketplace data for plan years 2023 and 2024. Such issues can contribute to APTC that is not reconciled through enrollees’ tax filings to determine the amount of premium tax credit for which enrollees were ultimately eligible. GAO’s preliminary analysis of data from tax year 2023 could not identify evidence of reconciliation for over $21 billion in APTC for enrollees who provided SSNs to the federal Marketplace for plan year 2023. Unreconciled APTC may not necessarily represent overpayments, as enrollees who did not reconcile may have been eligible for the subsidy. However, it may include overpayments for enrollees who were not eligible for APTC.

A big problem with reconciling these Obamacare subsidies is when someone uses a Social Security number that doesn’t actually belong to the person getting the insurance. GAO’s early look at federal Marketplace data found more than 29,000 Social Security numbers in 2023 that showed over a full year of subsidized coverage. One number was used so many times that it totaled more than 26,000 days of insurance across more than 125 plans – the equivalent of more than 71 years of coverage tied to a single number.

The pattern continued in 2024, with nearly 66,000 Social Security numbers being linked to more than a year of subsidized coverage. This can result from identity theft, fake identities, or simple typing errors. According to the GAO, determining the true owner of a Social Security number can be complicated, so it’s examining these cases and other examples of overlapping coverage more closely.

CMS officials say the federal Marketplace lets people sign up even when a Social Security number is already in use. They claim this helps the real owner of the number get coverage in cases of identity theft or simple typing mistakes. The system uses a model that analyzes various pieces of personal information to distinguish applicants, and CMS runs this check monthly to clear out duplicate accounts. They also say applications with repeated Social Security numbers are supposed to go through a data-matching process in which people send in documents to verify their identities. However, even with those explanations, the setup makes it far too easy for fake applicants to slip through, and clearly, they do. The way the system works gives fraudsters plenty of room to abuse Social Security numbers long before anyone notices.

GAO notes that its “covert testing is illustrative and cannot be generalized to the enrollee population.”

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Bureau of Prisons currently has 4,497 ‘unresolved’ employee misconduct cases, GAO reveals

Anew Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has failed to fully communicate its “employee misconduct” policies and procedures and about 37% of the 12,153 cases that are open as of February 2025 have been unresolved for 3 years or longer.

In its September 2025 report, GAO notes that while BOP updated its Standards of Employee Conduct in June 2024 and continues to offer training, the agency does not systematically collect or use feedback from staff about that training. The omission limits BOP’s ability to refine the design and effectiveness of its misconduct prevention efforts, according to the report.

Training material sub-par

The audit also points out shortcomings of BOP’s orientation handbooks. “BOP uses orientation handbooks and signs posted in facilities to inform incarcerated individuals how to report certain employee misconduct. However, the handbooks and signs discuss sexual misconduct rather than a broader range of allegations, such as contraband and physical abuse,” read the report. 

“Developing a communication strategy to fully inform incarcerated individuals about employee misconduct offenses that affect their health and safety could increase awareness about the standards BOP is trying to uphold and help ensure facility safety and employee accountability”, GAO added.

The watchdog found that while BOP tracks allegations of employee misconduct, the agency does not sufficiently analyze data trends over extended periods of more than two years. There are currently 4,497 unresolved cases.

“BOP increased staff and took other steps to reduce its employee misconduct caseload, but about 37 percent of the 12,153 cases open as of February 2025 had been unresolved for 3 years or longer. BOP’s approach to investigating and disciplining employee misconduct does not include establishing milestones or designating responsibilities to key officials,” the report read.

“Implementing a comprehensive plan with these elements would help BOP allocate the resources necessary for investigating and disciplining employee misconduct cases, achieve desired results, and enhance safety and efficiency,” the GAO also reported.

The GAO said in the report that the BOP remains on its “High‑Risk List,” given that “staffing gaps and leadership stability continue to be central concerns and affect BOP’s ability to monitor persistent issues such as employee misconduct.”

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Defense Department plagued by financial reporting issues that must be fixed to pass full audit: GAO

The Defense Department has been plagued by serious financial reporting issues that must be fixed for the agency to pass a full audit for the first time, the Government Accountability Office said in a new report.

“For the seventh consecutive year since the Department of Defense (DOD) was required to undergo full-scope audits, DOD received a disclaimer of opinion on its financial statement audit in fiscal year 2024, meaning DOD could not provide auditors with sufficient, appropriate evidence needed to support information in its financial statements due to ineffective systems and processes,” the GAO reported this month.

The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2024 requires the agency to “receive an unmodified (clean) audit opinion by December 31, 2028.”

Despite the agency’s failure to pass a full audit, Congress again raised defense spending in fiscal 2025 to nearly $900 billion. 

The defense budget could reach $1 trillion after an additional increase for fiscal 2026, based on President Donald Trump’s budget request.

The Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General identified 28 agency-wide “material weaknesses” in fiscal 2024 that have hindered “sustainable business processes and a functioning internal control environment” for its financial management operations.

GAO’s latest review found that “several identified DOD-wide material weaknesses directly affected $2.1 trillion (50.3 percent) of DOD’s reported assets and $146.9 billion (3.4 percent) of its reported liabilities, indicating that there is an increased risk that these amounts are materially misstated.”

The Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) defines a material weakness as a “deficiency (or combination of deficiencies) in internal control, such that there is reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of an entity’s financial statements could occur that would not be prevented, or detected and corrected on a timely basis.”

The federal watchdog noted that the Pentagon reported more than $4.1 trillion in assets on its balance sheet as of September 30, 2024. 

“DOD’s assets represent a significant portion of the federal government’s reported total assets. The ability to properly account for and report these assets would improve DOD’s ability to successfully carry out its mission and is critical to achieve an unmodified (clean) audit opinion,” the GAO report reads.

The Defense Department is the only major federal agency that hasn’t received a clean audit opinion on its financial statements. 

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Psychedelics Have ‘Promising Medical Applications,’ Congressional Watchdog Agency Says, But Research Challenges Remain

A federal agency has published a short report on the medical use of psychedelics, finding that their ability to “change a person’s perceptions and sense of self” can make for “promising medical applications.”

The paper, from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), says there’s a need for further research, but it also notes that because psychedelics such as LSD, MDMA and psilocybin remain Schedule I controlled substances, securing permission to carry out that research can be a challenge.

“To conduct research on these drugs, scientists need to follow several steps,” the report from GAO, which is often referred to as Congress’s “watchdog,” states in a section about ongoing challenges. “These include obtaining permission from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, finding clinical grade drugs to test, and identifying appropriate spaces in which to test and store these drugs.”

“Difficulties associated with conducting large, blind trials of psychedelics have limited researchers’ ability to determine the safety and effectiveness of these drugs,” GAO continues, “which is required for them to gain approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). FDA approval is generally required before prescription drugs can be marketed for sale in the U.S.”

Despite the obstacles, the paper acknowledges that hundreds of clinical trials have investigated psychedelics as a potential treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression.

“Between 2015 and early 2025, over 340 trials on psychedelics began or were completed,” it says. “For example, one study found that psilocybin reduced depression symptoms more than escitalopram, an SSRI.”

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From Oversight to Overlooked: The Government’s Failure to Control Trillions in Misspent Funds

The Government Accountability Office (GAO), created more than a century ago to assist Congress in its constitutionally mandated oversight responsibilities, issued a report just last year which estimated that in a span of 20 years, including 2023, that the US Government made $2.7 TRILLION dollars in improper expenditures resulting from overpayments, inaccurate record keeping, and fraud. In fiscal year 2023 alone, GAO determined the federal government improperly dispensed $269 Billion.

Let this sink in for those who are getting the vapors about administrative overreach into sensitive Treasury payment systems: TRILLIONS of our tax dollars have been lost through faulty payment systems. Rising taxes, mounting deficits and loss of faith in government are the effects.

The problem isn’t that President Trump and Elon Musk are diving into this, but that sweeping action to attack corruption has not been attempted by Congress, or by the Executive branch, in many a year.

This critical condition is above and beyond political parties and personalities. The failure to root out financial and other corruption in the US government has placed our nation in grave jeopardy through rising, seemingly uncontrollable deficits.

Government elites, kleptocrats, conniving with contractors, have long enabled this perilous condition, not the work-a-day federal employees.

The revolving door, individuals moving from high office in government to highly paid positions in the private sector, and back to the revolving door, has represented a takeover of the government by private interests.

This awareness inspires caution about the motives, intent and direction of the present bureaucratic realignment.

As a member of the Government Oversight Committee for 16 years, I yelled “stop thief,” many times into a din of indifference, inertia and blind acceptance of corruption as the implicate order. It was extraordinary to witness elected officials who helplessly shrugged at a system riddled with thievery while they, and they alone, were empowered to set it right.

Years before I was elected to Congress, I was Mayor of Cleveland. In my first year in office, I was able to cut city government spending by 10% without reducing service –through the elimination of waste, fraud and abuse – and ran the government on a cash basis.

I look at present federal spending, approaching $7 Trillion annually, $5.2 Trillion coming from revenues and $1.9 Trillion borrowed (adding to the deficit), with the interest on the national debt now exceeding $1 Trillion dollars annually.

I can easily envision that the elimination of waste, fraud and abuse at a federal level could save the American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars annually, helping to protect revenues for basic government services and lowering the national debt’s dangerous trajectory.

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Federal Agencies Made Over $161 Billion In Improper Payments Last Year: Watchdog

The U.S. government made billions of dollars worth of improper payments in the most recent fiscal year, with several agencies found to be non-compliant with regulations on the matter, according to a recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).

“Since fiscal year 2003, executive branch agencies have reported cumulative improper payment estimates of about $2.8 trillion, including $161.5 billion for fiscal year 2024,” the Jan. 23 report from the agency read.

An improper payment is one made by the government that “should not have been made or was made in an incorrect amount,” including duplicate payments, money sent to ineligible recipients, and payments made for goods or services not received.

The $161 billion is enough to buy over 380,000 homes in the United States, according to median home sales price data tracked by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. It is lower than the $236 billion in improper payments estimated to have been made by federal agencies in fiscal year 2023. Annual improper payments have remained above the $150 billion level since 2019.

The Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 (PIIA) mandates that agencies identify risks related to improper payments and take corrective actions, while also reporting improper payments within the programs they administer.

GAO found that 10 agencies under the Chief Financial Officers Act were “noncompliant with PIIA criteria for fiscal year 2022.”

The 10 agencies are the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, and Small Business Administration.

Out of the 10, nine were found to be noncompliant with the PIIA criteria for one or more programs or activities for two consecutive years—fiscal years 2021 and 2022. The only exemption was the Department of Homeland Security.

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Department of Education & The GAO; Audits & Incompetence

The Liberal left are miserable given Trump’s statement regarding his desire to eliminate the Department of Education;  children will have no schools – there will be no money for special needs – our education system will collapse…   It already did.

The Department of Education:  Their last audit for September 2023 financial statements was a disclaimer –  “KPMG has not been able to obtain sufficient appropriate audit evidence to provide a basis for an audit opinion because of unresolved errors KPMG identified in the underlying data, we do not express an opinion”.

In the world of accounting this means KPMG, the auditor, is covering their arse because the financials are ‘misleading and/or unrepresentative of truth’.  The Financial Statements did NOT delineate expenditures – in any definable mode.   Although it did assign $812 million to ‘unknown and improper loss to Taxpayers while identifying “Climate Related Financial Risk”

They spent $100 million on ‘equity’ K thru 12.  Their largess liability is loans which is what they owe back to the Treasury for over-spending.   Their largest Receivable is student loan debt which they are cancelling.  Meaning they could effectively add an additional $1.3 trillion to the Treasury Deficit if they successfully write-off their entire Asset Base.

Income and expense statements typically provided in every financial report are non-existent, MIA.   There is no breakdown of departmental use of funds – which could be a huge basis for KPMG refusing to grant them an audited opinion.  They Are Rogue.  And ANY low life accountant would fear having ANY relation with such a dervish entity given liability and LAWSUITS.

The entirety of their Assets are based on Loan Receivables to students which continue to be forgiven under the Biden Regime.  In 2023 that amount was $94 billion.   The Department’s appropriation of $881 billion in CoVid funds represents nearly 1/5 of the total $5 trillion.  $6.4 billion of CoVid aid was sent overseas.  CoVid funds cannot be traced or accounted for – by the Government Accounting Office.

The government being handed to Trump is a veritable Financial nightmare – MESS.  More than we can possibly realize – it is based on fraud.    Every agency tied to The West is based on Fraud (including NATO which I previously posted in a blog).   The money doesn’t exist.  The debt is likely 500times what is revealed as a direct result.   The US is literally well beyond broke and is hoping to blame it on Trump when reality sets in.

Running America on the backs of lawyers instead of monetary fiscal accounting and economics is our demise.  Lawyers have zero proficiency in finances, taxes or economics..  As a result, they created the Government Accounting Office.   

Gene Dodaro is head of the Government Accounting Office.   He has a BA in liberal Arts.  But to make it all make sense – they gave this BA of liberal Arts, Dodaro, a few awards to elevate his appearance of diligence.   In the Accounting world – a BA is liberal arts – a BS degree is quantitative Accounting.  He is NOT an Accountant.   He is NOT a CPA.   He is NOT an Economist.

Having graduated college in 1973, he worked his entire career within the federal government.  His title in the GAO is “Comptroller”.  In the real world, Comptrollers are responsible for the preparation of all balance sheets, income statements, internal controls and audits.  The previous US Comptroller was David Walker, a CPA who also completed the CAPSTONE program for flag rank military officers.

As a former CPA/Comproller/Finance Director – we used to joke about small corporations hiring their wife’s, sister’s best friend who knew someone who took a couple bookkeeping classes in high school.  To save money.   But we are talking about our Federal Government hiring incompetents who have never actually worked in any capacity as an accountant – running the financial apparatus of our entire COUNTRY.

It makes sense IF the reason was exactly because he was uneducated, an appointment originated by Obama.  It portends to the extant of financial MESS throughout every single government agency for which KPMG is the ONLY auditor.

NATO fails its audits – our government agencies fail their audits – the Department of Defense is missing $33 trillion – no wonder they need to confiscate Syria’s Oil and Ukraine’s $13 Trillion in resources!   To Cover Their ARSES.  To use war as diversions from the financial devastation that they blame on Social Security!

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Biden Administration Made $236 Billion in ‘Improper Payments’ Last Year: GAO Report

An estimated $236 billion in improper or incorrect payments was made under the Biden administration last year, with Medicare and Medicaid accounting for $100 billion of that total, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).

“For fiscal year 2023, 14 agencies reported a total estimated $236 billion in improper payments across 71 programs,” said a March 26 GAO report. Improper payments refer to payments “that should not have been made or were made in the incorrect amount.” The $236 billion calculation does not include certain government programs that agencies determined were “susceptible to significant improper payments.”

As such, GAO believes the $236 billion estimate “potentially does not represent the full extent of improper payments.”

The group pointed out that improper payments suggest a “material deficiency or weakness in internal controls” at the agencies. “The federal government is unable to determine the full extent of its improper payments or to reasonably assure that appropriate actions are taken to reduce them.”

Medicare accounted for the largest percentage of government incorrect payments, totaling $51.1 billion.

This was followed by Medicaid at $50.3 billion, Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance at $43.6 billion, Earned Income Tax Credit at $21.9 billion, and the Paycheck Protection Program Loan Forgiveness at $18.7 billion.

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70% Or More Of F-35s May Not Be Combat-Capable

A September 2023 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the F-35 revealed some shocking statistics on just how unready hundreds of billions of dollars worth of F-35s are to provide actual combat power. In fact, the report indicated that only 15 to 30 percent of F-35s may be capable of combat.

But if you were to read a typical article in the media, you might believe that, on average, some 55 percent of F-35s are combat-capable. However,  you would be wrong. You see, when the average person sees a report declaring that 55 percent of F-35 combat aircraft are “mission capable,” they assume mission capable equals combat capable. But in doing so, they are being deceived.

The deception comes out of how the F-35 program office and the whole of the Department of Defense define “mission capable.” It turns out that the DoD definition of “mission capable” does not mean combat capable. What it means is that an aircraft can fly and perform at least one mission. So, a plane designated as mission capable might be capable of doing some type of combat, but it might not. Instead, the mission it might be capable of executing could be testing or training, or some other mission that does not involve combat. And even if it is considered capable of testing or training, it might not be capable of doing the full gamut of testing or training you would expect from a fully functional aircraft. Likewise, it could still be classified as mission capable even if it is only capable of executing a portion of the combat-type missions it is supposed to be able to perform.

Hence, within the environs of the military–industrial–congressional complex, “mission capable” is a highly ambiguous term that allows for a whole lot of gaming of accountability metrics. And it tells us very little. Still, it is worth noting that at a 55 percent mission capable rate, the F-35 fleet is well below program targets of 90 percent for the F-35A (Air Force) and 85 percent for the fighter’s F-35B (Marine Corps) and F-35C (Navy) variants. In other words, the F-35 fleet as a whole is nowhere near meeting its mission capability goal of being able to do anything at all.

However, there is another metric that is more useful: “full mission capable.” It turns out that “full mission capable” F-35s are supposed to be able to perform all the missions for which they were contracted, including combat-oriented missions, surveillance, training, testing, show of force, etcetera. This metric is not often publicized, but in the case of the F-35, the watchdog side of the GAO actually did a detailed report of the problems and issues with the F-35 that included how the F-35 fleet looked from the “full mission capable” perspective.

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