Jeff Merkley says Ted Cruz amendment to health care bill ‘a pathway to fake insurance’

Sen. Jeff Merkley said Tuesday that Sen. Ted Cruz’s amendment to the GOP health care bill is “a pathway to fake insurance.”

“You see Sen. Cruz saying that in order to support this bill, you’ve got to have his amendment, which completely dismantles the ability to have common pricing and protection against pre-existing conditions. That bill would eviscerate the essential benefits philosophy where a health care policy is actually a policy that covers something,” Mr. Merkley said on CNN.

“The president has criticized almost every single day ’fake news,’ but what we have in the Cruz amendment is a pathway to fake insurance,” he said.

The Oregon Democrat said what’s really needed to fix Obamacare is a single-payer, Medicare-for-all system, which he says even his conservative constituents agree with.

“I really wish we’d go further. Even in these conservative parts of my state that I lost re-election by 30-40 percent, what I’m hearing is the system is way too stressful,” he said.