Cruz’s cunning plan
by digby
Like everyone else, I wondered why in the world Ted Cruz, of all people, would purchase health care through Obamacare when he could easily just go out and buy it on the open market. The law only requires that you have health insurance, not that you buy it through the exchange. It’s not as if he can qualify for subsidies or anything.
Brian Beutler at TNR sees the method to his madness:
The threat to subsidies in Texas doesn’t affect Cruz directly. His family isn’t eligible for them. But if the Court rules for the King challengers in June, it won’t simply eliminate other people’s subsidies. It’ll push hundreds of thousands of Texans off of their plans, and eviscerate the law’s coverage requirement, ruining the individual and small group markets in Texas, where the Cruzes’ insurance will be based. Plans will disappear and costs will spike for almost everyone—even those who weren’t previously eligible for subsidies.
[…]
Perhaps Cruz is disclosing in the most roundabout possible way that he no longer believes the Court will or should eliminate ACA subsidies in Texas and elsewhere. More likely he thinks he can turn his family’s own travails with Obamacare to his advantage on the campaign trail this summer. If his plan gets canceled or his premiums mushroom after a bad Court ruling in June, he can play up his own Obamacare horror story to frothing Republican primary voters, while omitting the fact that he quite literally asked for it.
I would imagine he’s going to make sure he has “travails” whether the Court strikes down the subsidies or not. It’s not as if a GOP primary requires a strict adherence to the facts.
This makes perfect sense to me. There’s no other good reason why Cruz would do this. He’s basically adopting the James O’Keefe method. He’s going on the “inside” to “report” back how evil and corrupt the system is. (He’s also quite wealthy so he has a nice backstop …)
.