Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz will decide "in the coming days" whether to purchase health insurance through Obamacare, his spokesman Rick Tyler said.
The Cruzes had been covered through his wife's plan at Goldman Sachs in Houston where she is a managing director. Heidi Cruz is taking unpaid leave to work on the campaign.
She could probably continue the family's existing workplace coverage under the COBRA system by picking up the employer's contribution. Another option would be buy a new private healthcare policy,
Politico reported.
Cruz made headlines Tuesday by telling
The Des Moines Register that, "we will presumably go on the exchange and sign up for healthcare."
Tyler later explained that "Obamacare has driven the whole industry." Adding "it's not as if the new private plans have been all preserved. They haven't. Everything was affected by Obamacare," according to Politico.
Proponents of the Affordable Care Act say the senator would be prudent to
shop at healthcare.gov for the best coverage.
Liberal-leaning bloggers have argued that the law does not compel the Cruz family to accept Obamacare coverage through the small-business marketplace of the Washington, D.C. exchange, according to Politico.
Under Obamacare, the government covers up to 75 percent of the premiums for most federal employees and lawmakers,
The New York Times reported
Another possibility might be for Cruz to pass up the D.C. exchange and purchase Obamacare from the state exchange in Texas, according to
The Daily Caller.
"Senator Cruz and his wife are still weighing options for their family," Tyler told Politico. There would be nothing hypocritical about obtaining coverage through the Affordable Care Act. Suggesting otherwise is "like saying he's not going to pay the taxes he voted against," Tyler said.
Cruz is the first announced candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
He has been one of the Senate's most vigorous opponents of the Affordable Care Act. He controversially said of those who give up the battle against the healthcare law: "Look, we saw in Britain, Neville Chamberlain, who told the British people, 'Accept the Nazis. Yes, they'll dominate the continent of Europe, but that's not our problem. Let's appease them,' " he said.
He has pledged that if elected he would sign "legislation repealing every word of Obamacare."
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