Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, one of the federal health law’s fiercest critics, will not participate in Obamacare after all.
Cruz and his family have bought coverage in the private market instead of going through Cruz’s employer, Congress, which offers plans for federal workers under the Affordable Care Act.
The Texas senator said in March after he announced his presidential candidacy that he was considering plans offered through the federal health care law, triggering stories and commentary about the irony of Cruz signing up for Obamacare.
“They bought a plan through Blue Cross/Blue Shield in Texas,” campaign spokesman Rick Tyler told McClatchy Monday.
“It’s the plan that made the most sense for their family.”
The Cruz family, including wife Heidi and two daughters, were covered through Heidi Cruz’s employer, Goldman Sachs, until earlier this year when she took a leave of absence as a managing director to campaign with her husband.
“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 in March.
The Democratic National Committee jumped on the story and sent it out to the media, calling it "16.4 million + 1," referring to the number of people who are now covered by the health care law plus Cruz.
Cruz became a national figure in 2013 when he famously spoke in the Senate for over 21 hours in an effort to defund the health care law and helped trigger a partial federal government shut-down.
Cruz is just as adamant today, said Tyler, about the need to repeal Obamacare. At the Georgia Republican Party convention in Athens Friday, Cruz repeated what he says at every campaign stop, that it is time “to repeal every word of Obamacare.”
Cruz says that the health care mandates have been destructive to employers and to economic growth.
By bypassing Obamacare, Cruz will not benefit from the subsidy that is a mainstay of employer-provided coverage but one that he said he would not use even if he signed up for a plan under the health care law.
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