Famously anti-Obamacare Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is now signing up for health insurance on an Obamacare exchange, he confirmed Tuesday.
“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.
Cruz, a vociferous opponent of Obamacare, led a filibuster against funding the health care law in 2013. He’s avoided buying insurance on his Obamacare exchange, as most members of Congress must, because he and his family had insurance through his wife’s employer, Goldman Sachs.
Obamacare required members of Congress to give up their government health plans and purchase insurance on Obamacare exchanges. Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley inserted the requirement into the law so that the politicians who passed the law would “have to go through the same red tape as every other citizen,” he told Roll Call.
Because Cruz wasn’t covered by the federal health plan in the first place, he didn’t have to join in. But since Heidi Cruz is taking unpaid leave from her position at Goldman Sachs for the duration of her husband’s presidential campaign, her coverage has been cut off. Now Cruz is stepping up to join HealthCare.gov like others in Congress.
When asked by the Register asked whether his staunch opposition to the health care law made it frustrating to sign up, Cruz simply said Congress shouldn’t get special treatment.
“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.”
He remains, however, one of Obamacare’s biggest critics, reiterating his support for repealing the law entirely.
“I believe it will be. I believe in 2017 a new president, a Republican president will sign legislation repealing every word of it. There are a fair number of Republicans in Washington and elsewhere who have quietly and privatively (sic) given up on that fight and I have not,” he concluded.
Cruz also pledged his commitment to repealing Obamacare in his Monday speech announcing his 2016 campaign.
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats have already applauded the news that an Obamacare opponent has been forced to participate.
Ted Cruz: Obamacare for me, but not for thee. #ACAWorks http://t.co/AqEXYaCb0G
— Senate Democrats (@SenateDems) March 24, 2015