Cruz to sign up for government health care

Ted Cruz, one of the loudest critics of Obamacare, will soon be using it for health insurance coverage.

"We will presumably go on the exchange and sign up for health care, and we're in the process of transitioning over to do that," Cruz, a Republican candidate for president, told The Des Moines Register on Tuesday.

Cruz's wife, Heidi, is going on an unpaid leave of absence from her job at Goldman Sachs to join Cruz full time on the campaign trail, Cruz told the Register.

Bloomberg was first to report that Heidi Cruz has taken the leave. CNN noted that Cruz, who has boasted about not needing to receive government health care benefits, would no longer be covered under his wife's health insurance plan.

Cruz confirmed that to the Register.

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Iowa U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley pushed through an amendment on the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, that requires members of Congress to obtain their coverage via health insurance exchanges. Congress pays most of the premium. But Cruz won't be getting any extra benefit under the Affordable Care Act that a member of Congress wouldn't have gotten before the ACA became law.

The exchanges are an online marketplace where small businesses, people who carry their own coverage, and the uninsured can buy health insurance.

The public marketplace is the only place where moderate-income Americans can obtain policies that qualify for Obamacare subsidies. (Poor people can get Medicaid, which is separate.)

Cruz, as a member of Congress, would use the exchange to choose his employer-provided insurance.

Asked whether it chafes to have to rely on Obamacare, Cruz told the Register: "Well, it is written in the law that members will be on the exchanges without subsidies just like millions of Americans so that's — I think the same rules should apply to all of us. Members of Congress should not be exempt."

But, Cruz added, he'd still like to see Obamacare repealed in its entirety.

"And I believe it will be. I believe in 2017 a new president, a Republican president will sign legislation repealing every word of it. There are a fair number of Republicans in Washington and elsewhere who have quietly and privately given up on that fight, and I have not," he said.