President Donald Trump's decision to scrap health insurance companies' subsidies was "exactly the right thing to do," as the money was being spent for "massive bailouts" at a time when insurance companies' profits have doubled, Sen. Ted Cruz said Friday.
"In 2008 the top 10 insurance companies had about $8 billion in profits," the Texas Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom," but by 2015, those profits "doubled to $15 billion."
"Of course we shouldn't be bailing out insurance companies," he said, but the Obama administration was writing billions of dollars in checks to the industry, and that "was illegal."
"Congress hadn't appropriated the funds," said Cruz." The president is doing the right thing, but it underscores the need in the Senate that we have to step up and deliver on our promise to repeal Obamacare."
Trump's actions will also put further heat on the Senate, said Cruz, and he expects a vote to repeal Obamacare to come along.
Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have called Trump's action a "spiteful act of pointless sabotage leveled at the middle class," leading Cruz to ask why they would get "really angry defending corporate welfare" over the needs of Americans hurt by the rising costs of Obamacare.
"This thing is collapsing and we have to lower premiums, expand consumer freedom," he said.
Cruz said he's also glad Trump expanded association health plan that allow people in the individual or small business communities to join in groups for insurance purchasing.
The senator also discussed the call from former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon to challenge Republican incumbents, all except for Cruz himself.
"We have Republican control of every branch of government and we're not delivering," said Cruz. "If senators don't want to see those kind of challenges there is an easy solution to that. Let's do what we said we would do."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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