Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is a master at what Al Franken used to call "weasel words" -- talking points that are carefully constructed to sound legitimate but really aren't at all. Come to think of it, Stephen Colbert famously referred to this sort of thing as "truthiness." Cruz is especially on his game when the topic of the complicated Affordable Care Act comes up because even top-shelf reporters don't quite grasp all of the ins and outs of Obamacare and, frankly, the administration hasn't been very strong at educating the public about what the law covers. And Cruz is exploiting every square mile of this supercolossal Obamacare ignorance gap.
For the last two days or so, Ted Cruz has repeatedly said that 1) as a member of the Senate, he's required to have an Obamacare policy, 2) in spite of this requirement he was on his wife's insurance policy until just recently, and 3) Congress is exempt from Obamacare because of an illegal move by the president. So, Obamacare is mandatory now, but it wasn't before, and it's actually not any more because of the allegedly "illegal" Obama exemption.
On Wednesday, Cruz sat down with a reporter from an outfit called The Daily Signal and delivered this troika of nonsense once again.
1) First, Cruz again described how for two years he's been on his wife's insurance -- not an apparently mandatory congressional Obamacare plan.
When I announced the campaign, my wife also decided to take an unpaid leave of absence from her job. We have been for the past couple of years covered on my wife's health insurance. When she took an unpaid leave of absence, it means that she's also losing her benefits. And so we're gonna do what anyone else would do, which is take their health insurance from their employer. So, in all likelihood, we'll go on the exchange.
2) After discussing so-called "Obama subsidies," Cruz then described why Obamacare is a requirement for members of Congress... CONTINUE READING