Why would Cruz sign up for Obamacare?

[Journeyman]

15. I asked the same thing in a thread yesterday . . .

My wife and I used Covered California to get insurance in 2014. We wanted to get the numbers for the ACA up as much as possible.

However, we left "Covered California" this year because we encountered a number of medical providers who "looked down their nose" at us for having "Obamacare." The assumption -- inaccurate, and arrived at with no evidence to support -- was that we were low income and (I assume) potentially a "risk" for making our co-pays.

This year, we purchased the exact same plan directly from the insurance carrier. So we still enjoy the benefits of the ACA -- our insurance comes at about a third the cost it did in 2013, we have access to a number of low-cost and free procedures mandated by the ACA, and we don't have to dread a medical diagnosis throwing us into an uninsurable category.

So what I wonder about Cruz is, he doesn't have to get his insurance through an exchange -- he'll garner all the benefits without having to directly use an ACA-established plan -- so why is he even involved with it?

I would really like for him to have to pay what I was paying two years ago for insurance: it would certainly open his eyes to the benefits of the ACA.

I suspect Cruz has something underhanded in mind. No idea what he may hope to accomplish, but then, I don't put anything past him.