Ted Cruz says he has no health insurance

MANCHESTER, N.H., Jan. 22 (UPI) -- Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, a staunch opponent of the Affordable Care Act, revealed he and his wife currently lack health insurance.

He blamed ObamaCare.

Speaking in Manchester, N.H., on Thursday, the Texas senator said he and his wife, Heidi, on leave from her position with Goldman Sachs, purchased individual policies from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas rather than buy through the healthcare exchange where, as a senator, he is entitled to a 75 percent discount on premiums. He lost his coverage when the company canceled its individual policies at the end of 2015.

"You know who one of those millions of Americans is who's lost their healthcare because of ObamaCare? That would be me. I don't have healthcare right now. So our healthcare got canceled. We got a notice in the mail: Blue Cross Blue Shield was leaving the market. And so we're in the process of finding another policy. I hope by the end of the month we'll have a policy for our family, but our premiums — we just got a quote, our premiums are going up 50 percent," he told the Manchester audience.

Cruz, who has two young daughters, led a GOP congressional effort to defund the Affordable Care Act in 2013, which provoked a temporary government shutdown.

Democratic National Committee spokesman Eric Walker called Cruz's problem "a misleading sob story," adding, "Ted Cruz had the option of signing up for coverage through his position as a U.S. senator, but opted out in order to make a political point. The fact that Ted Cruz would use his own irresponsible decision as an excuse to take affordable care away from 19 million Americans is despicable."

In Manchester, Cruz said his decision has complicated his home life as well, commenting, "By the way, when you let your health insurance policy lapse, your wife gets really ticked at you. It's not a good — I've had, shall we say, some intense conversations with Heidi on that."