Campaign Action
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) isn't one to let someone else get all the extremist limelight for very long. Last week Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was getting all the headlines for his hard-line stance, boosted by popular vote loser Donald Trump, of repeal now, replace sometime down the road. That strategy has been rejected by Senate leadership, because they really can't get 50 votes for that, but that's not stopping Cruz, because it's his turn to be an asshole.
“If we cannot bring the conference together and agree on repeal legislation, then I think President Trump’s absolutely right that we should pass a clean repeal,” Cruz told reporters.
Cruz said such a repeal should be delayed “either a year or two years” to give lawmakers time to work on a replacement.
Cruz made his comments after a town hall event here hosted by Concerned Veterans For America, a group backed by the conservative Koch brothers. The comments came the same day that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) leaned further into a very different kind of backup plan: working with Democrats on a more modest bill to stabilize insurance markets.
“If my side is unable to agree on an adequate replacement, then some kind of action with regard to the private health insurance market must occur,” McConnell said in Kentucky. “No action is not an alternative. We’ve got the insurance markets imploding all over the country, including in this state.”
That's sure going to help. It's not clear if Cruz laid out his all-or-nothing plan in response to McConnell's musings about bipartisanship, but it doesn't really matter. Cruz is clearly staking out an oppositional position to McConnell, and reminding him he's got Trump on his side.
Please give $1 to each of our Senate funds so that Republican senators—especially Ted Cruz—know there'll be a price to pay for repealing health care.
Cruz could also be upping the pressure on leadership to include his proposal to allow health insurers to sell junk policies as long as they also sell one that is compliant with the Affordable Care Act's consumer protections. That proposal is also getting a poor response from Republicans, because it clearly undercuts protections for people with pre-existing conditions, giving them very limited options of plans that insurers could offer at any price they wanted. Cruz could be not-so-subtly blackmailing McConnell—put his provision in or he'll join the repeal and nothing else crowd.
Oh, and don't forget he's got his trusty side-kick Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) in on this one, tossing out ultimatums about not voting for it if it doesn't have Cruz's plan. Whatever is going on in the twisted brains of these two, it spells trouble for McConnell in getting to 50, and means that we've got to keep the pressure on so that the so-called "moderates" don't do their usual cave-in. Call them: 202-224-3121.