Was Your Health Insurance Canceled?

SEATTLE (AP) — The head of Washington's health care exchange says 6,000 accounts of people who had enrolled for insurance coverage starting Jan. 1, 2015, have been mistakenly canceled.

Washington Health Benefit Exchange CEO Richard Onizuka said in a statement Tuesday evening that the "erroneous cancellation" affects both the customers' enrollment and payment for 2015 coverage.

He says it appears that "an automated enrollment cancellation process" was run in error.

Onizuka apologized for the inconvenience. He says the exchange will reconfirm health care coverage for affected customers.

He says the affected accounts represent "a portion" of the total number of customers enrolled for coverage beginning Jan. 1. It was not clear how sizeable a portion that was.

Exchange spokeswoman Bethany Frey said Tuesday night in an email that she didn't yet have a total enrollment figure for 2015, "we just know the 6,000 isn't all of them."