Go ahead, laugh it up. You know you want to.
Not Ted Cruz
Ted Cruz, one of the loudest critics of Obamacare, will soon be using it for health insurance coverage.
“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, a Republican candidate for president, told The Des Moines Register Tuesday.
Cruz’s wife, Heidi, is going on an unpaid leave of up absence from her job at Goldman Sachs to join Cruz full time on the campaign trail, Cruz told the Register.
Bloomberg was first to report that Heidi Cruz has taken the leave. CNN noted that Cruz, who has boasted about not needing to receive government health care benefits, would no longer be covered under his wife’s health insurance plan.
[…]
Cruz, as an employee of the government, will use the exchange to choose his employer-provided insurance. Iowa U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley pushed through an amendment on the Affordable Care Act that requires members of Congress to obtain their coverage via the exchanges. Congress pays most of the premium. But Cruz won’t be getting any extra benefit under the Affordable Care Act that a member of Congress wouldn’t have gotten before the ACA became law.
Asked if it chafes at all to have to rely on Obamacare, Cruz told the Register: “Well, it is written in the law that members will be on the exchanges without subsidies just like millions of Americans so that’s – I think the same rules should apply to all of us. Members of Congress should not be exempt.”
But, Cruz added, he’d still like to see Obamacare repealed in its entirety.
Wonkblog notes that Cruz will not be taking any of the contribution money that legislators and their staffers are entitled to, so in that sense he’s sticking to his principle. I say if he really wants to be true to his vision, he should make like Louie Gohmert and forgo health insurance altogether. That’s the kind of freedom from tyranny he wants all those newly-insured people (and lots of not-so-newly-insured people, I expect) to have once he becomes President and repeals the Affordable Care Act, right? Well, then now is not the time for half-Measures. Now is the time to show us what you’re really made of and boldly go uninsured, Ted. Hell, just the opportunity to do a little civil disobedience by refusing to pay the tax penalty should have you licking your lips and twirling your mustache, if you had one to twirl. If Louie can do it, Ted, so can you. Anything less would be a sellout.
“Sellout” or “squish?”