AUSTIN, Texas – As we mark the fourteenth anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, which lowered costs and allowed 3.5 million Texans to have affordable coverage, remember that Ted Cruz remains a staunch opponent of increasing access and lowering costs. 

He’s worked tirelessly to overturn the Affordable Care Act, pushed a dangerous agenda on reproductive healthcare that would ban abortion and put services like IVF at risk, and voted against cutting prescription drug costs. 

“Texans can’t afford six more years of Ted Cruz’s extreme anti-healthcare agenda, which would increase costs, put services like IVF on the chopping block, and protect his Big Pharma friends’ record profits at Texans’ expense,” said Texas Democratic Party spokesperson Ryan Radulovacki.

Here’s a closer look at Cruz’s record:

Cruz opposes the ACA, which lowered healthcare costs:

• Cruz’s Senate website declares he has been “a leading voice for repealing” the Affordable Care Act “since his first day in office.”

• Cruz introduced legislation to “fully repeal” the ACA in 2017 and boasted “unwinding the harms of Obamacare begins now.” 

Cruz has championed efforts to ban abortion and put IVF at risk:

• Cruz is against abortion even in the cases of rape and incest. 

• Cruz celebrated the overturning of Roe v. Wade and called it a “massive victory” – and when asked how Texas law would affect women in the state, he defended Texas’s near-total abortion ban.

• Cruz has “enthusiastically” supported so-called “personhood” measures that could impact not just the use of IVF but access to contraception — from IUDs to over-the-counter emergency contraceptives.  

Cruz voted against cutting drug prices and capping the cost of insulin:

• Cruz voted against legislation that capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month for Medicare recipients, and finally allowed Medicare to negotiate the cost of prescription drugs.

• He also voted against capping insulin costs for those with private insurance.

###