Ted Cruz recently made headlines by claiming he was no longer insured and that Obamacare was to blame.
We know Obamacare wasn't at fault because Cruz's insurance company canceled the plan he was enrolled in, but it turns out he was never actually uninsured. Cruz was automatically enrolled in a new plan.
The Cruz campaign confirmed to Bloomberg that he never lost coverage.
"On December 31, Blue Cross cancelled the PPO health insurance policy covering the Cruz family. That plan was purchased on the individual market, using a private insurance broker, with no government funds. At the time, the broker informed Sen. Cruz that the plan was being cancelled. The broker did not inform him that Blue Cross had automatically enrolled the family in another policy, an HMO with far more limited coverage. Based on this information, Sen. Cruz believed the family was uninsured and asked the broker to pull quotes immediately for a new policy.
"The Cruz family is currently covered by a Blue Cross HMO and will be covered by a Humana PPO effective March 1. The new premium—for coverage similar to what the Cruz family had last year—is roughly 50 percent higher."
You could buy the idea that Cruz was simply unaware that he has insurance, but I don't buy it.
Particularly for a married man with small children, I don't believe he's that oblivious. There's simply no way a parent with two children ages 5 and 8 didn't know the status of his family's coverage.