WASHINGTON (AP) – A federal inspector general has launched an inquiry into the Trump administration’s decision to pull back advertising for HealthCare.gov in the closing stretch of this year’s sign-up season.
Democrats had called the surprise move “sabotage.” The Trump administration said the ads were a waste of taxpayer dollars.
In a letter to Democratic Sens. Patty Murray of Washington and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the Health and Human Services Department’s inspector general’s office said it has begun a “fact-finding review” of the administration’s actions, including the effect on enrollment.
About 12.2 million people have signed up for coverage this year through HealthCare.gov and state insurance markets, short of earlier projections by the Obama administration, but still considered respectable by independent analysts.
Murray and Warren had asked the inspector general’s office to investigate.