Texas Senator Ted Cruz said he had no regrets over forcing a shutdown of the federal government in a bid to delay the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. And he warned that the law will have an upcoming cascade of unpleasant effects beyond those already in evidence.
In an interview with Fox News's Chris Wallace at the Washington Ideas Festival, Cruz said he planned to introduce a bill to repeal and replace the three-year-old health-care overhaul law and dismissed Democratic efforts to find a legislative fix that will to undo its impact on the existing private insurance market, where millions of insurance plans have been cancelled.
"You're seeing lots of Democrats scrambling and they're coming up with lots of proposals and they're all named clever things: 'If you like your plan you can really, really, really keep it.' Listen, I don't think people are interested in some cosmetic Band-Aid. Most of these plans have a good title, but if they passed into law, they'd do next to nothing for the millions of people who have lost their health care. And the thing about Obamacare, the five million who've lost their health care right now is just the beginning of this," Cruz said.
"One of the next shoes that is going to be dropping is you're going to see more and more people realizing they can't keep their doctor. Texas oncology, one of the very best cancer centers in Texas, has just announced it's not going to participate in Obamacare. I've gotta tell you, I've got people who are close friends who are cancer survivors who are discovering now they can't go to their cancer doctor because Obamacare has denied them their doctor," Cruz continued. "That's the next shoe that's going to fall."