The Face of Healthcare.gov Speaks Out

Her name is Adriana. She wanted free family portraits, so she contacted the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which took her family's photos in exchange for the rights to use them for marketing the Affordable Care Act (ACA). As a result, her face was plastered across the Healthcare.gov website and she earned the title "the most despised face on planet Earth."

In an exclusive with ABC, Adriana, who asked for her last name to be withheld, discussed about her experience and reminded viewers that she doesn't deserve to be bullied over the ACA's rocky rollout. She said, "I'm here to stand up for myself and defend myself."

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Adriana is "a mother, and a wife, and [she is] not a professional model." Furthermore, she was not even paid for her photo, or for the ordeal that followed.

However, she became the subject of ceaseless mockery by pundits and bloggers, who photoshopped her photo (as seen in the video) and conflated her face with the ACA's issue-ridden implementation. The cyberbullying she faced clearly hurt her; she visibly fought back tears while talking about her experience in the interview.

While ABC's Amy Robach reports that Adriana "is now able to find some humor in the face of all of that negativity," we must remember that scapegoating innocent bystanders has real effects on their lives. Adriana didn't deserve the negative attention brought down on her by those ridiculing the ACA's troubled rollout. She is human, and deserves to be treated as such.