Sen. Ted Cruz’s proposal may offer the way forward for the stalled Senate health-care bill, delivering as it does a real escape from ObamaCare while still allowing for targeted help for people with pre-existing conditions.

The Cruz amendment would let any insurer who offers ObamaCare-compliant policies also sell insurance that doesn’t meet the one-size-fits-all mandates. That would let healthy, younger people buy affordable coverage — without subsidies, but also without forcing them to subsidize insurance for older folks.

Federal taxpayers as a whole would be directly helping the folks that most Americans believe should get assistance, while everyone else would be free to choose a policy that works for them, rather than one that satisfies a wish-list drawn up by Democrats in Congress nearly a decade ago.

Satisfying moderate senators might require GOP leaders to increase the pool of cash dedicated to serving people with pre-existing conditions, but that’s a trade conservatives can take in exchange for letting the market start to work again.

All Republicans have a duty to agree on real reform: ObamaCare is now falling apart, yet Democrats won’t support any “fixes” that don’t involve pushing the country even closer to a “single-payer” system — and making it even harder for people who like their insurance to keep it.