This piece by Jonathan Larsen originally ran in The Fucking News on 9/23/26. It is republished here with his permission. Vance’s announcement took place on Tuesday, Sept. 22.
Cliff’s Note:
Vance and Oz threw 750,000 people off their health insurance this week and called it fighting fraud. Then they held up one case as proof of how bad things got under Biden.
Jonathan Larsen, one of the sharpest writers in independent media, did what the D.C. press corps didn’t: he pulled the court filings. What he found behind the paywall flips their story on its head, and you’ll want it in your pocket the next time someone tells you this is about “fraud.”
This is what $60 a year buys: receipts, not talking points, from people who actually read the documents. Subscribe to Blue Amp Media and read the whole thing.
—Cliff
by Jonathan Larsen
Vice President JD Vance on Tuesday announced the removal of 750,000 people from the federal health insurance program known as Obamacare.
Vance made the announcement alongside Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Mehmet Oz as part of an accelerating get-out-the-vote operation on behalf of Democrats.
Stripping health insurance from almost a million people in one live-streamed campaign rally was just the latest Republican effort to encourage Democratic voter turnout, along with distributing flyers across Iran, fundraising with tariffs that raise funds from consumers, and door-knocking operations such as knocking down the doors of the East Wing of the White House.
Vance and Oz were roundly ridiculed for the incoherence of their announcement, which included the prospect of kicking another 419,000 people off Obamacare, all on the premise of fraud.
The main problem cited was that Vance and Oz said they were removing people from Obamacare who had not, records showed, filed any claims. This was shared as evidence that these people don’t really exist.
In reality, people who don’t file claims are the lifeblood of insuring people so they can keep their life and blood. Insurance insures people against the possibility that they might have to file a claim. Insurance can afford to pay out claims because most people don’t make them.
In the case of health care, one would think everyone would file a claim for regular checkups but … and bear with me now … what if some people can’t even afford those in the Trumpconomy?
“This is not about cutting off anybody from their benefits. It’s about cutting off fraudsters from stealing from these programs,” Vance said while cutting people off from their benefits.
The cuts will save an estimated $2.2 billion, Vance said without saying how one saves money by cutting off people who are paying monthly premiums but not filing claims.
“[T]hose 750,000 people are people that … either don’t know that they’re enrolled in the program, aren’t using the program at all, are unaware of it or … are potentially phantom people who are enrolled against their will, or maybe they don’t even exist,” Vance explained without explaining how phantoms can rip off a program they don’t know they’re in because they don’t exist.
As The Hill notes, Vance’s campaign rally comes after Republicans have already boosted Democratic turnout by turning out millions of people from Obamacare by allowing tax subsidies to expire.
Vance blamed Pres. Joe Biden for letting too many people get health insurance without doing enough to stop fraud. (Unlike Pres. Donald Trump who is ending illegal fraud by making fraud legal.)
After a dramatic Obamacare expansion during COVID, the Biden administration decertified about 200 brokers — who get commissions for signing people up for Obamacare — for juking the system. Trump recertified them because nothing counts til he does it, and then decertified more.
Vance’s fraud task force — meaning, a task force that is a fraud — has denied billions in Medicaid funds to states that allegedly don’t do enough to fight fraud. Medicaid is the health plan people can apply for if they’re too poor for Obamacare. Unless they’re kicked off both.
Vance has targeted California and Minnesota as not fighting fraud. Which nicely teed up Tuesday’s example of fraud: From Florida.
Oz spotlighted the case of two Obamacare brokers, Cory Lloyd and Steven Strong, as examples of the Biden-era fraud that Trump alone can fix. Because I couldn’t find sufficient details on the case in Tuesday’s reporting, I went down the rabbit hole, which I have the luxury of doing thanks to your support.
Newsfuckers, here’s what I found, digging through legal documents, about these Biden-era fraudsters.
