WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) today said a damaging General Accounting Office (GAO) study confirms that the administration is incapable of protecting taxpayers from waste, fraud and abuse in Obamacare.

“This damning report calls into question the ability of the administration to protect scarce taxpayer dollars and calls into question the validity of the enrollment data for Obamacare,” Roberts said. “Time and again we learn of the failures of the law, we must repeal Obamacare and start over.”

At issue is a GAO undercover investigation that revealed Healthcare.gov, the federal exchange website, approved 11 fictitious applications. These fake applicants all maintained coverage in 2014 and were then re-enrolled for 2015 despite use of false documents or having missing information. The fake applicants received $30,000 in subsidies.

The administration claims a total of 10.2 million consumers signed up and paid for coverage under the health law by the end of March. The federal government is expected to spend $822 billion over the next decade for subsidies.

“As evidenced in this latest report, I have grave concerns about this new government benefit being subject to fraud and abuse – potentially driving this number, $822 billion, even higher,” Roberts said. “There is a lack of accountability. We now have two years of data highlighting these problems. With Obamacare, the taxpayer cannot trust the federal government to carry out the fundamental responsibility of safeguarding taxpayer dollars or maintaining the program’s integrity.”

Senator Roberts is a member of the Senate Committee on Finance and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Since the health care reform debate in 2009, Senator Roberts has been an outspoken opponent of Obamacare. Roberts fought against the flawed plan in both committees, and voted against the legislation on the Senate floor. Roberts, the co-chair of the Senate Rural Health Caucus, has supported several measures to repeal Obamacare in the five years since its enactment, and continues to support full repeal.

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