Points to Ponder:

“Nations that went down fighting rose again, but those that surrendered were finished.” [Winston Churchill (circa May 24, 1940)]

On the Cruz Amendment to the Senate Obamacare Repeal Bill:

(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)

I am no fan of Senator Ted Cruz for reasons I have noted in the past many times, albeit not on this humble website. However, a good idea deserves to be recognized whomever comes up with it and the Cruz Amendment to Majority Leader McConnell's bill is a good idea for many reasons. The first is that it actually targets the whole issue that Obamacare was supposed to be aimed at but never came close to achieving: lowering premiums. The second reason is a bit more subtle but this article notes it as well: acting as a hedge against future single payer.

For if folks have health care choices that lower their premiums as the Cruz Amendment allows for, then there would be no interest whatsoever in single payer later on which (as anyone with a normal intact functioning brain knows!) will never lower rates and will only jack them up higher while entrenching more government into the process. The Cruz Amendment operates as a hedge against this while leaving an option in place for those who for some odd reason actually like their Obamacare plan and giving everyone else actual options. And if people prefer non-Obamacare plans and choose them, then the market has decided on this matter and that is what is important, not what some dipshit bureaucrats decide arbitrarily to demand that someone obtain.


So again, as I know what some of you will say after reading much of this and accuse me of being some Cruzbot, I am not a Cruzbot or a Trumpbot. Nor have I carried water for the Republicans for more than two decades now unlike those of you who only recently thought it was cool to become an Independent voter. However, reason and ethics demand that a good idea be recognized and promoted wherever one finds it and on the issue of the Obamacare repeal, the Cruz Amendment is a welcome compromise to get to 50 votes provided (of course) that the repeal legislation also fully repeals the individual and employer mandates as well without any gimmickery attached to those elements. The end result of these three elements is a defacto repeal of Obamacare even if not a de jure repeal as well as a hedge against further movement in the direction of single payer. And considering how far we are from having the votes for a full statutory repeal, this is as good as it will get until we find 60 votes somewhere for a full statutory repeal.