Fire up the Clown Bus.
Cruz signing up for ObamaCare
By Sarah Ferris - 03/24/15 03:57 PM EDT
Sen. Ted Cruz is signing up for ObamaCare one day after launching his presidential bid.
Cruz, one of the biggest ObamaCare foes in Congress, found himself without health insurance after his wife, an executive at Goldman Sachs, announced she is taking an unpaid leave to join his campaign. He will now head to HealthCare.gov to sign up for a plan.
"We will presumably go on the exchange and sign up for health care and we're in the process of transitioning over to do that," Cruz told the Des Moines Register on Tuesday.
The Texas senator was previously covered by a Goldman Sachs plan that was worth at least $20,000 a year, according to a 2013 report from The New York Times.
Cruz has previously boasted that he was not forced to buy coverage under ObamaCare. As a freshman senator in 2013, the Republican firebrand’s efforts to defund the ObamaCare reform law led to a government shutdown and rocketed him to the national stage.
Lawmakers can receive subsidies to pay for their health care through the exchanges, but it was unclear whether Cruz planned to accept one.
In his speech Monday announcing his 2016 run, Cruz pledged to repeal “every word of ObamaCare.”
“Instead of the joblessness, instead of the millions forced into part-time work, instead of the millions who’ve lost their health insurance, lost their doctors, have faced skyrocketing health insurance premiums, imagine in 2017 a new president signing legislation repealing every word of Obamacare,” he said Monday.
Cruz confirmed Tuesday that ObamaCare repeal remained a top priority.
“There are a fair number of Republicans in Washington and elsewhere who have quietly and privatively given up on that fight and I have not," he told the Register.
At least one of Cruz's colleagues in the Texas delegation has refused to be insured through ObamaCare. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R) gave up his insurance instead of obtaining it through the exchanges.
thehill.com |
