Short but to the point. Ted Cruz’s claim he lost his health insurance because of the failure of Obamacare wasn’t exactly true. Actually, it was never true. What a shocker, eh?
In a reversal from claims made on the campaign trail, Ted Cruz's presidential campaign is now saying the senator and his family do have health insurance and never lost coverage. The late night Friday revelation came more than 24 hours after Cruz had told a New Hampshire audience that he and his family were without health insurance and were scrambling to obtain new coverage--and used the claim to slam Obamacare for the mess he was in.
In statements to Bloomberg and Wall Street Journal, campaign spokeswoman Catherine Frazier blamed Cruz's false assertion that his family had lost their health insurance on a misunderstanding. She said an insurance broker told Cruz that BlueCross BlueShield of Texas was dropping his PPO plan, but Frazier said that the broker did not tell Cruz his family was automatically being transferred to the carrier's HMO plan.
He also lied that his premiums on any new policy would go up 50%. They will go up in March under a new plan he purchased, but the reason is because that plan covers more and thus costs more than his old plan.
Thursday Cruz had also claimed that his search for new insurance was complicated because his "premiums are going up 50 percent."
This allegation came as premiums on average in Texas went up only 4 percent in 2016, and the single biggest premium jump came from a tiny carrier that is raising premiums by 34 percent.
In explaining this claim by Cruz, Frazier said his family has opted to switch over to a new carrier starting in March with a plan more generous than the HMO that is currently covering him.
"The new premium—for coverage similar to what the Cruz family had last year—is roughly 50 percent higher," Frazier said.
Bet this glaring “mistake” doesn’t hurt him one bit in the race to be the Republican nominee (imagine if Bernie or Hillary were caught in a similar “mistake). Bet the media doesn’t cover the retraction of his claim that the ACA cost him his health care coverage with anywhere near the amount of attention they covered the lie. Well unless Trump decides to mention it. Bet you the people who heard him promote this falsehood never learn the truth and even if they do they will still believe the lie. Must be nice to be a Republican presidential candidate and know you can say anything.