WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said Tuesday that if Republicans do not seize the opportunity to defund the Affordable Care Act using a continuing resolution, that the health-care law would become a “permanent feature of the American economy.”
Cruz is one of several Senate Republicans who are calling on Republicans to vote no on any continuing resolution unless it defunds the much derided health-care law, along with Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.
“If there is ever a time to defeat Obamacare, it is now,” Cruz said at a briefing at the Heritage Foundation. “Moreover, we have, I believe, the best opportunity we will have, and possibly the last good opportunity we will have to defund Obamacare with the continuing resolution.”
“If we do not pursue this strategy,” he said later, “we are saying we surrender. Obamacare will be a permanent feature of the American economy.”
Cruz argued that once the law were implemented, people who were receiving subsidies as a result of the law would fight to keep it, noting that historically, no entitlement program in modern times has ever been rolled back after it was implemented.
“If the subsidies kick in, the prospect or full repeal of Obamacare diminish dramatically,” Cruz said.