Hundreds of Hawaii residents could lose Obamacare health insurance benefits in fraud crackdown

News admin September 23, 2026 0 Comments

Hundreds of Hawaii residents could lose Obamacare health insurance benefits in fraud crackdown

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – Hundreds of thousands of Americans are being kicked off their Obamacare health plans, after the Trump administration accused them of fraud.

The state DCCA’s Insurance Division says more than 23,000 Hawaii residents are covered by Obamacare or Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace plans this year, which are sold by two carriers: HMSA and Kaiser Permanente. HMSA says it has about 18,000 enrollees.

Unlike bigger states, Hawaii’s marketplace is run entirely on the federal exchange Healthcare.gov, so the state doesn’t manage enrollment. It’s not clear how many of Hawaii’s enrollees are caught up in this national fraud sweep.

“We do not get forewarned of these things, so we are Informed with the general public and you know immediately we try to spring into action to make sure that we can do whatever assessments we need to make,“ said Joseph Campos II, director of the Hawaii Department of Human Services.

On Tuesday, Vice President J.D. Vance cancelled Obamacare coverage for 750,000 enrollees nationwide, claiming they are receiving subsidies they don’t qualify for or don’t exist at all. Another 419,000 enrollees are under review.

Vance says it’s about protecting taxpayer money.

“You have a system where, on the one hand, brokers are paid money to feed patients into the system, while on the other hand, the government isn’t even checking whether the people enrolled are actually eligible for the program,” Vance said.

But health advocates argue kicking people out of the program hurts nontraditional workers who can’t get employer-paid insurance and will cost Hawaii taxpayers more to cover a higher number of uninsured residents.

“They will still be going to the hospitals, the emergency rooms, the FQHCs (Federally Qualified Health Center) where they are required to be treated by the federal government. So they are going to get treatment without having to pay premiums,” said state Sen. Joy San Buenaventura, (D) Puna, chair of the Senate Health & Human Services Committee.

“The taxpayers are gonna lose more, whereas if we allow them to pay premiums through the ACA, at least they’re paying into the system they have skin in the game.”

Without the ACA subsidies, the state will have to find other healthcare funding sources for self-employed or gig workers who have no other options for health insurance.

“If it extends uniformly across the U.S., it’s gonna be roughly about like 500 people in the state of Hawaii, and we wanna make sure that these people are legitimately canceled and they are not canceled in an erroneous way,” said UHERO economist Ruben Juarez. “This is gonna be naturally affecting immigrants, is gonna naturally be affecting even small business owners, maybe they don’t have the updated income in the system and they do qualify.”

“This is not a perfect system and many people may be incorrectly canceled. So they need to make sure that if they are one of those people that they need to go and correct it,” Juarez added.

If your coverage is cancelled in error, health advocates advise reviewing your online ACA account and appealing the action within 90 days. DCCA is also available to help.

In a statement to HNN, HMSA said it “is monitoring the Trump Administration’s recent actions related to Affordable Care Act marketplace enrollment and eligibility verification. We are assessing any potential impact on our members and will keep the community informed as more information becomes available.”

A bigger concern for Hawaii is how the cuts will hurt independent healthcare providers already struggling with high costs and nontraditional workers who’ll end up foregoing insurance.

“That’s not good for anyone because that’s gonna raise premiums at the end of the day,” Juarez said.

“Money spent on fraudulent claims is money that is not available to provide healthcare to actual beneficiaries,” said UHERO economist Tim Halliday. “Yes there is absolutely fraud and waste in Hawaii. One could point to prices for PCR tests during COVID as one example. But the issue is that we need to distinguish between actual fraud and legitimate utilization. So these additional administrative burdens could act as impediments to necessary care. The challenge always is to not throw the baby out with the bath water.”

Consumers can contact the Hawaii Insurance Division at 1-844-808-DCCA (3222) ext. 4. Additional consumer resources can be found online at https://cca.hawaii.gov/ins.