Last week, Ted Cruz made headlines by saying he and his family were uninsured, and that it was all Obamacare's fault because his "healthcare got canceled" when "Blue Cross Blue Shield was leaving the market." On top of that, he said, "we just got a quote, our premiums are going up 50 percent." There were a lot of questions raised in that, like how could his premiums be going up that high when no insurer in Texas had a rate increase like that, and how could he be getting a quote on an insurance policy that doesn't exist, and how could he be such a schmuck as to leave his little children without coverage?
Turns out, none of that was true, although the degree to which Cruz knew he was lying when he said it isn't clear. The campaign was forced to admit late on Friday, that he'd been insured all along. Here's the campaign statement:
"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."
Actually, BCBS notified all their plan customers in July of cancellations, giving Cruz and family five months to figure this out—they didn't just find out about it on December 31, as this statement would lead you to believe. That alert went to customers, not to brokers. Now, Cruz and his wife could have been busy enough on the campaign trail to have missed this, which only makes him too irresponsible to actually be president.
There's another problem with the new story, that his rates went up 50 percent in switching to that Humana PPO plan. Right now, not knowing exactly which BCBS plan he was on, and which Humana plan he's switching to, that can't be confirmed. Particularly because Healthcare.gov doesn't include any Humana PPO plans in the Houston area, where Cruz lives. Using a family of four, in his zip code, with the information that's publicly available about his family, I searched Healthcare.gov for available plans. Humana is only offering HMOs on the exchange.
So he apparently went completely off the exchange to get this new insurance, and is no longer at the whim of Obamacare. Except that he has all the protections it provides for preexisting conditions, etc. Here's the other thing about that 50 percent increase complaint—if he chose to, he could buy insurance from the Washington, DC, exchange as Charles Gaba points out. There are 14 PPO plans offered there that apply to Texas. He probably could have gotten a pretty good deal there. Which he wouldn't do, because of his principled stance.
The same "principles" that led him to use what he said was his family's misfortune for cheap political points.