A huge opening for GOP on Obamacare

A Friday announcement by the Department of Health and Human Services that it would weaken fraud-prevention measures in President Obama’s health care law provides a huge opening for Republicans.

To recap, as originally envisioned, Obamacare’s new insurance exchanges were supposed to be able to quickly verify information provided by applicants against multiple databases before providing beneficiaries with taxpayer subsidies to purchase insurance. But under the gun to get the exchanges up and running by the Oct. 1 deadline, HHS decided to substantially weaken the requirements and rely increasingly on applicants’ personal claims about their income level and insurance status, thus increasing the likelihood of fraud.