Meet The Replacements

Kudos to Iowa resident Mike Valde, who has committed more political journalism with a single question than nearly all of America's political pundits this entire campaign season.

His voice quavering with emotion, Mike Valde told Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) about his brother-in-law: He was a barber who couldn’t afford health care until the Affordable Care Act, and after getting coverage he went to the doctor for the first time in years, and was diagnosed with multiple tumors. He died soon after.

“Mark never had health care until Obamacare,” Valde told Cruz in a middle school cafeteria here. “What are you going to replace it with?”

Guess.

“Sir, I promise you, I will answer your question. I’m laying out first of all the problems,” Cruz said. He went on to say that the “most pragmatic, the most prudent” thing to do is repeal the law and start over. When that is done, he said that competition in the marketplace should be expanded, people should be able to buy health insurance across state lines and that everyone wants people to have insurance coverage.

“Your father in law, he couldn’t afford it,” Cruz said.

“Brother-in-law,” Valde responded.

“Your brother-in-law couldn’t afford it,” Cruz said.

“Right. But he could afford it, he finally got it under Obama,” Valde told Cruz.

Cruz repeated Valde’s story, that by the time Valde’s brother-in-law went to a doctor, he was already dying.

“He would have gotten it earlier, if he could have afforded it earlier, but because of government regulations, he couldn’t,” Cruz said.

That's Ted Cruz's answer: if we repeal Obamacare, insurance magically becomes affordable.  We're not even bothering with replacing it anymore. No problems with health insurance existed before 2011, you know.  Everyone had health insurance and it was great, and it's all Obama's fault now.

And that's fine with Republicans.