Ted Cruz, who once spent 21 straight hours speaking on the Senate floor railing against President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, plans to sign up for Obamacare.
“We’ll be getting new health insurance and we’ll presumably do it through my job with the Senate, and so we’ll be on the federal exchange with millions of others on the federal exchange,” Cruz said, according to CNN.
Several news outlets reported that Cruz would no longer be able to get health coverage through Goldman Sachs, his wife’s employer. Heidi Cruz is on unpaid leave as her husband campaigns for the presidency. Cruz, the junior U.S. senator from Texas, Monday announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
Cruz arrived in the Senate in 2013 and has been relentless in his opposition to the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which requires nearly everyone to obtain coverage.
He has urged full repeal, claimed the act has helped boost premium costs, and at one point maintained that members of Congress were exempt. In September 2013, he spent 21 hours and 19 minutes on the Senate floor in an effort to defund the law. He failed, and afterward then-Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, tweeted, “It’s been interesting, but it’s also been a big waste of time.”
Cruz on Tuesday said there was nothing ironic about the move. He was only following the law. He can buy coverage through an exchange and choose employer-provided benefits.
“Well, it is written in the law that members will be on the exchanges without subsidies just like millions of Americans so ... I think the same rules should apply to all of us,” he told the Des Moines Register. “Members of Congress should not be exempt.”
Cruz said he still wants the law repealed.
“What is problematic about Obamacare is that it is killing millions of jobs in this country and has killed millions of jobs,” Cruz told CNN. “It has forced millions of people into part time work. It has caused millions of people to lose their insurance, to lose their doctors and to face skyrocketing insurance premiums. That is unacceptable.”
Heidi Cruz's coverage became the subject of a small media tempest in 2013, after Cruz and House conservatives insisted on de-funding the ACA through the appropriations process.
After the resultant government shutdown ended, Heidi Cruz confirmed that she was covered, and her husband benefited from Goldman's generous plan.It was a rare and tooth-pulling mention of Heidi Cruz's career. Even in his announcement speech, at Liberty University, Cruz talked at length about his wife's successbut did not mention where she worked.
This report contains material from Bloomberg News.
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