Sen. Cruz Leads With Obamacare Repeal Bill

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 -- The office of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, issued the following news release:

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) today reintroduced his legislation to fully repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare. Sen. Cruz's Obamacare Repeal Act is the first piece of legislation he introduced as a U.S. senator representing Texas, and he has reintroduced it every Congress since. Early Thursday morning, Sen. Cruz voted in favor of the Senate's budget resolution, which provides a critical step toward fully repealing Obamacare.

"With Republicans now in the White House, and in control of the House and Senate, I look forward to working with my colleagues to keep our promise to the American people to fully and completely repeal Obamacare," said Sen. Cruz. "When we repeal Obamacare, we will rein in out-of-control health care costs and rejuvenate the number and quality of health care choices - but our job won't be complete until we fully return health care decisions and dollars to American families and their health care providers. Unwinding the harms of Obamacare begins now by fully repealing the law and starting over with commonsense, patient-focused reforms that put patients and their doctors back in the driver's seat."

From day one, Sen. Cruz has led the fight for full repeal of Obamacare. Beginning with an historic 21-hour floor speech in support of defunding Obamacare in September 2013, Sen. Cruz elevated the fight to repeal this disastrous law and made it part of the national consciousness. More than three years later, the American people, led by a united Republican government, are on the precipice of passing patient-centered health reforms, such as allowing the purchase of insurance across state lines, expanding health savings accounts, and making health insurance, personal, portable, and affordable.

The Obamacare Repeal Act fully repeals Obamacare effective January 1, 2018, and provides Congress and the states the intervening year to develop and pass patient-oriented health care reform that will incrementally unravel Obamacare's structural damage to our health care system and economy.

Congress must demonstrate its commitment to reducing healthcare costs and empowering American families with better innovations that save and improve lives. To begin accomplishing this goal, Sen. Cruz plans to introduce additional pieces of legislation, starting with measures to allow American families to shop around the country for insurance and to reform the Food and Drug Administration to break down barriers to life-saving medical advances in developed countries.

Full text of the the Obamacare Repeal Act is available here. The bill is cosponsored by Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

30FurigayJof-5745094 30FurigayJof