参议院少数党领袖主张将930亿美元国防开支重新分配给医疗保健项目
作者：阿什利·奥利弗
福克斯新闻
2026年3月17日 美国东部时间上午6:00发布
舒默与图恩在参议院进行激烈辩论
参议院领袖查克·舒默(Chuck Schumer)和约翰·图恩(John Thune)周四在参议院就国土安全部资金问题展开辩论。
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参议院少数党领袖查克·舒默试图通过对比已到期的奥巴马医改强化税收抵免的成本与五角大楼支出，来推动恢复这些税收抵免，但该计划正面临对《平价医疗法案》(ACA)的新审查，政策专家警告称该项目存在大量不当参保、欺诈漏洞以及不断上升的纳税人成本。
“我们需要改革《平价医疗法案》，而不是向其投入更多纳税人的钱，”健康政策研究组织Paragon Health Institute主席布莱恩·布莱斯(Brian Blase)表示。他补充道：”政府补贴并不会让医保更实惠，反而会整体上增加成本，因为你必须考虑纳税人的支出。”
布莱斯本月在舒默对战争部长皮特·赫格斯泰特(Pete Hegseth)在财政年度最后一个月花费934亿美元（包括数百万美元用于为军队购买帝王蟹等奢华食品）进行猛烈抨击后，向福克斯新闻数字频道发表了上述言论。
这位纽约州民主党人抓住五角大楼的支出数字作为政治论点，称同样的金额可以将强化版ACA税收抵免延长三年，尽管国防资金与奥巴马医改补贴并非直接可替代。
随着截止日期临近，相互对立的奥巴马医改计划即将失败，参议院转向两党谈判
“赫格斯泰特一个月就花了930亿美元——大致相当于将ACA税收抵免延长三年的成本。但赫格斯泰特没有降低美国人的医疗成本，反而将数百万纳税人的钱花在了果篮、赫曼米勒躺椅、冰淇淋机、阿拉斯加帝王蟹和斯坦威三角钢琴上，”舒默上周在X平台上发帖称。
布莱斯认为，ACA不仅存在已被证实的欺诈行为，还充斥着不当和”虚假”参保者，司法部近年来一直在打击ACA市场中的欺诈行为，特别是未经授权的参保计划。
Paragon Health Institute的调查显示，2021年至2024年间，越来越多的ACA参保者从未使用过他们的医保计划。2024年，35%的参保者从未使用过医保。
“这个数字很可疑，”布莱斯指出，”在正常的医疗保险市场中，每年大约有15%的人不使用他们的医疗保险。”
民主党人和共和党人去年在延长ACA补贴问题上陷入僵局，这场斗争导致了长达六周的政府停摆。民主党人一直推动延长这些税收抵免，理由是个人保费成本大幅上涨。
布莱斯表示，即使没有参保问题，该计划对纳税人的负担也极为沉重，因为保险公司不断提高保费成本。
“对于普通参保者来说，政府支付了80%的保费。对于低收入参保者，政府支付的金额超过了保费，”布莱斯补充道，”纳税人的保费份额在自动增长。”
他还表示，普通人通过雇主获得医疗保险。
“因此，他们实际上受到了损害，因为他们没有得到任何缓解，却必须支付更高的税款，以便我们能直接向医疗保险公司汇款，而我们直接给医疗保险公司的钱只会导致他们提高保费，并增加他们的利润，”布莱斯说。
除了不当参保和更广泛的纳税人负担外，司法部近年来也加大了打击ACA市场欺诈行为的力度，重点打击未经授权的参保计划。
司法部检察官在2月份对两名保险公司高管判处20年监禁，他们被陪审团定罪，因为他们在未获得知情的情况下为弱势群体办理参保，策划了一起2.33亿美元的ACA欺诈案。
美国政府问责局(GAO)的一项审查发现，ACA的提前税收抵免项目仍然存在欺诈风险。在2025年的秘密测试中，ACA市场为GAO虚构的大多数申请者批准了医保覆盖，监督机构发现截至2025年9月，20名虚构参保者中有18人仍在积极参保，每月获得超过1万美元的补贴。该报告还指出了更广泛的漏洞，包括数万个用于多次参保的社会保障号码。
舒默抨击五角大楼年底支出的言论正值美国国防开支处于历史较低水平，与过去几十年相比，仅占美国国内生产总值的3.7%，圣路易斯联邦储备银行的分析显示。延长有争议的ACA税收抵免也正值不断增长的国家债务本月将超过约39万亿美元。
参议院在奥巴马医改修复计划失败后考虑下一步行动
白宫发言人库什·德赛(Kush Desai)在给福克斯新闻数字频道的声明中称舒默的言论是”空洞的公关噱头”。
“如果查克·舒默真的关心医疗保健的可负担性，他会放弃这些空洞的公关噱头，花时间与政府和共和党人合作，通过特朗普总统的伟大医疗保健计划来降低保费和削减药品价格，”德赛说。
舒默办公室未回应福克斯新闻数字频道就布莱斯言论的置评请求。
社交媒体用户迅速批评舒默上周在X平台上的帖子，指责他选择了一个政治便利的时刻来关注支出问题，抨击他不支持为军人提供高质量餐食，并指出拜登政府有类似支出时舒默保持沉默。
五角大楼9月份的支出几乎与2024年9月国防部长劳埃德·奥斯汀(Lloyd Austin)的790亿美元支出持平。在财政年度结束时，各机构面临”不用则弃”的压力以证明来年预算合理性，因此各届政府的支出一直很高。
司法部如何开展146亿美元医疗保健欺诈打击行动
前司法部刑事司司长马修·加莱奥蒂(Matthew Galeotti)与医疗保险和医疗补助服务中心主任梅赫梅特·奥兹(Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Mehmet Oz)在司法部举行的新闻发布会上发表讲话，宣布历史上最大的医疗保健欺诈案件，于2025年6月30日在华盛顿特区。(Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
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在明尼苏达州发现数百万美元联邦资金被滥用后，特朗普政府今年还在司法部内设立了一个新的国家欺诈执法部门，作为全国”全政府”打击福利欺诈的一部分。该部门将针对明尼苏达州和其他州的社会服务项目进行欺诈调查。
阿什利·奥利弗是福克斯新闻数字频道和福克斯商业频道记者，负责报道司法部和法律事务。请将新闻线索发送至ashley.oliver@fox.com。
Fraud scrutiny clouds Schumer’s Obamacare credit push after his Pentagon ‘luxury’ spending jab
Senate Minority Leader advocated redirecting $93B in defense spending to the healthcare program
By Ashley Oliver
Fox News
Published March 17, 2026 6:00am EDT
Schumer, Thune spar in Senate floor exchange
Senate leaders Chuck Schumer and John Thune debated Thursday on the Senate floor over funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s push to revive expired enhanced Obamacare tax credits by contrasting their cost with Pentagon spending is colliding with fresh scrutiny of the Affordable Care Act, as policy experts warn the program is riddled with improper enrollments, fraud vulnerabilities and rising taxpayer costs.
“We need to reform the ACA, not throw more taxpayer money at it,” Brian Blase, president of the health policy research group Paragon Health Institute, said. 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 in the final month of the last fiscal year, including millions of dollars in luxury foods, such as king crab, for the troops.
The New York Democrat seized on the Pentagon spending figure to make a political point that the same amount could cover extending enhanced ACA tax credits for three years, even though defense funds are not directly fungible with Obamacare subsidies.
DUELING OBAMACARE PLANS SET TO FAIL AS DEADLINE NEARS, PUSHING SENATE TOWARD BIPARTISAN TALKS
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speaks at a press conference with other members of Senate Democratic leadership following a policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Oct. 15, 2025.(Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“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 last week.
Blase argued that the ACA is fraught with improper and “phantom” enrollees on top of proven fraud for which the Department of Justice has secured convictions, and that more funding was not the answer. The ACA’s premium subsidies are financed by the federal government, and advance payments of those tax credits are made on eligible enrollees’ behalf directly to insurers to reduce monthly premiums.
A lot of Democrats have “conflated” the issue of extending enhanced ACA subsidies, but the “original Obamacare subsidies remain in place, and they are very generous,” Blase said, noting that those original subsidies are permanent and in place by statute and that the enhanced subsidies are merely a costly bonus.
The enhanced subsidies, introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, made some marketplace plans free for certain low-income enrollees. Paragon Health estimated that more than 6.4 million enrollees may have reported incomes low enough to qualify even though many likely earned more.
“That’s significant improper enrollment,” Blase said.
About 23 million people enrolled in healthcare plans in the ACA marketplace for 2026, but an estimated 3 to 4 million enrollees are likely “phantom enrollees,” Paragon Health found, describing them as those who are either fictitious or do not know they are enrolled in a plan. Blase said “unscrupulous” brokers and agents, who are incentivized to enroll people in healthcare plans, can enroll them without their consent.
Using data released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services last year, Paragon Health found that from 2021 to 2024, a growing number of ACA enrollees never used their health plans. In 2024, 35% never used their coverage.
Blase said that figure was suspicious, noting that “in a normal health insurance market, there’s about 15% of people that don’t use their health insurance in a given year.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks during the House and Senate Democrats’ joint news conference on DHS funding negotiations in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026.(Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Democrats and Republicans were locked in a standoff last year over extending the ACA subsidies, a fight that helped fuel a six-week government shutdown. Democrats have cited sharp rises in premium costs for individuals as they continue to push to extend the credits.
Blase said that even without the enrollment problems, the program is massively burdensome to taxpayers because insurers perpetually raise their premium costs.
“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 said, adding that the “taxpayer share of the premium continues to grow on autopilot.”
He added that the average person has health insurance through 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 said.
On top of improper enrollment and the broader taxpayer burden, the DOJ has ramped up its efforts to combat fraud in the ACA marketplace in recent years and focused on unauthorized enrollment schemes.
DOJ prosecutors secured high-profile 20-year prison sentences for two insurance executives in February after they were convicted by a jury of orchestrating a $233 million ACA fraud scheme by enrolling vulnerable people without their knowledge.
A review by the Government Accountability Office found fraud risks persist in the ACA’s advance tax credit program. In undercover testing for 2025, the ACA marketplace approved coverage for most of GAO’s made-up applicants, and the watchdog found that 18 of 20 fictitious enrollees remained actively covered as of September 2025 and received more than $10,000 a month in subsidies. The report also flagged broader vulnerabilities, including tens of thousands of Social Security numbers used for multiple enrollments.
War Secretary Pete Hegseth.(Omar Havana/Getty Images)
Schumer’s jab to reallocate the Pentagon’s end-of-year spending comes as defense spending is historically modest compared to past decades, representing a small fraction of the United States’ gross domestic product at 3.7%, according to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Extending the controversial ACA tax credits would also come as the growing national debt is set to eclipse about $39 trillion this month.
SENATE MULLS NEXT STEPS AFTER DUELING OBAMACARE FIXES GO UP IN FLAMES
White House spokesman Kush Desai called Schumer’s remarks a “vapid PR stunt” in a statement 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 said.
Schumer’s office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on Blase’s remarks.
Social media users swiftly panned Schumer for the X post last week, accusing him of cherry-picking a politically convenient moment to care about spending, lambasting him for not supporting high-quality meals for military members and pointing out that Schumer was silent when the Biden administration had similar expenses.
The Pentagon’s September costs nearly mirrored the $79 billion Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spent in September 2024. Spending at the end of the fiscal year has been notoriously high across administrations as agencies face pressure to “use it or lose it” to justify the next year’s budget.
HOW THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CARRIED OUT A $14.6 BILLION HEALTHCARE FRAUD TAKEDOWN
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 during a press conference announcing the largest healthcare fraud case in history, at the DOJ on June 30, 2025, in Washington, D.C.(Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
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After uncovering millions of dollars in misuse of federal funds in Minnesota, the Trump administration also established a new National Fraud Enforcement Division within the DOJ this year as part of a “whole-of-government” crackdown on welfare fraud nationwide. This division is set to target Minnesota’s and other states’ social service programs in search of fraud.
Ashley Oliver is a reporter for Fox News Digital and FOX Business, covering the Justice Department and legal affairs. Email story tips to ashley.oliver@fox.com.
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