America's Healthcare Advocate

Claire Benson’s health insurance was abruptly cancelled when she tried to update her information in her healthcare.gov account. Claire bought her insurance through the Health Insurance Marketplace and after the policy was in place, she was asked in an email from healthcare.gov to update her account to reflect her married name and provide documents. She needed help logging in and called the 1-800 number for help. The navigator on the other end of the phone reviewed her policy, and encouraged her to update pregnancy information, too. So, Claire clicked “yes” and revealed her pregnancy. As first reported by KCTV5 Investigative Reported Angie Ricono: “I was just following instructions,” said Benson, “speaking to the person who answered the phone at Marketplace, trusting that she would tell me what I needed to know and guide me in the right direction.” Benson’s health insurance was immediately terminated. Angie offered Claire several ways to deal with this including getting me on the case to advocate for her. In