Your Money: About your health insurance fiasco

March 16, 2026

	By Ron Lieber

Hi everyone —

This weekend, in our latest “How Did This Happen” column, I wrote about a woman who lost her Medicare coverage without any warning.

As you may recall, my wife ran into a related insurance notification issue when United Health Care decided not to cover part of her breast cancer surgery — and we didn’t find out until 36 hours before the procedure.

This is not how things should work. If you’re about to lose your insurance — or not get coverage for something expensive and important — there should be extensive notification.

But somehow it’s legal to receive limited notice — or none at all. We’re aiming to find out why this is the case and how we can go about fixing it. If you’ve been in the middle of a similar debacle — or have insider knowledge or other expertise that could help — please drop us a note at yourmoney_newsletter@nytimes.com.

Thanks, as ever, for helping us with our work. Here’s a list of New York Times money articles from the past week.

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What to Do if You’re a Data Breach Victim (and You Probably Are)

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For a special section in April on money and longevity, The New York Times would like your thoughts on how you save and plan for the future, as well as any tips you might have for getting by and meeting your goals. Write to us here.

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How Did this happen?

When Changing Your Address Leads to Losing Your Medicare Coverage

Using a post office box shouldn’t cost you your health insurance. But in one woman’s case, it sure seemed to.

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When Your Apple Watch Becomes an Office Taskmaster

A proliferation of data from wearable technology is telling people how to optimize their job performance. Is that a good thing?

By Noam Scheiber

How are we doing?
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