“I don’t have health care right now,” says Ted Cruz, attributing the cancellation of his plan to (you guessed it) Obamacare.
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) January 21, 2016
Somebody needs to pull Ted Cruz aside and talk to him about representing the Party of Personal Responsibility.
Mrs. Cruz has taken time off of work at Goldman Sachs to help her husband run for President. So she has lost the family health insurance coverage from her job.
As my colleague Scarce said,
"In other words, by running for president they lost their coverage from her job, and he didn't want to go into the exchange. So it's all Obama's fault Ted Cruz is running for president."
But seriously....
Senator Cruz is, whether he cares to admit it or not, an employee of the federal government. The federal government, as an employer, gives its employees the ability to purchase health insurance with an employer contribution. This is from 2012, but it fits Ted Cruz's situation:
Like other large employers, the government pays a large share of the cost of coverage. On average, the government pays 72 percent of the premiums for its workers, up to a maximum of 75 percent depending on the policy chosen. For example, the popular Blue Cross and Blue Shield standard fee-for-service family plan carries a total premium of $1,327.80 per month, of which the beneficiary pays $430.04. Washington, D.C.-based employees who prefer an HMO option might choose the Kaiser standard family plan. It carries a total premium of $825.15 per month, of which the employee pays only $206.29.
So maybe Ted Cruz doesn't even want employer-based health insurance, because federal government. That's fine, he can call up Blue Cross / Blue Shield of Texas and ask them for a quote, and just buy health insurance off the rack, as it were. Many people who make more than 400% of the federal poverty level do this. The advantage to buying from the Obamacare exchange is people making less than that can get a subsidy for their insurance premium.
Ted and his wife make considerably more than that, so they could just buy insurance off the rack. But wait. Because the Affordable Care Act passed the Congress and was signed by the President, (from here, emphasis mine)
All qualified major medical plans sold inside and outside of the marketplace have the same basic regulations, offer the same basic benefits, rights, and protections, count as minimum essential coverage, and will protect you from the per month fee for not having coverage.
Does that mean that even Mrs. Cruz's Goldman Sachs health insurance had Obamacare all over it? Damn you, Obama!
I can't believe a US Senator and Harvard graduate would be so pig-headed as to deny his children health insurance because of some artificial political "principle." Is he just going without health insurance himself? If he's buying it for wife and kids and not for himself he's a hypocrite. If he's leaving his family uninsured, he's a reckless and irresponsible head of household.
Whatever game he's playing, he needs to be called out for his lack of personal responsibility. Insure yourself, Ted.
