Where is Cruz's better plan?

It's one thing to have a better idea. It's another to be a simple obstructionist with nothing to offer except negativity.

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and his tea party colleagues in the U.S. House are obstructionists when it comes to Obamacare. Cruz says he will do anything he can to prevent the plan, designed to make sure every American has health care insurance, from going into effect. He's even willing to shut down the government to do it. Yet he offers no proposal to take Obamacare's place, even though health care costs have so steadily escalated in recent decades that an estimated 30 million adult Americans have no health care insurance. Even though medical bills are the most common cause of bankruptcy.

This is hypocritical and shockingly irresponsible. Cruz benefits from a generous health care plan provided by the taxpayers. Yet in his ideological zeal, he would prevent others, including folks with pre-existing conditions who have been shut out from a health care insurance plan, from guaranteed coverage. And he would risk shutting down the entire federal government to achieve his goal.

Most recently Cruz said the issue isn't about personalities, but about stopping the health care plan. Yet he's done nothing but seek the limelight in his ongoing protests. He's not a doer, he's a would-be undoer. He doesn't want to work with people, he works against them. By linking an Obamacare de-funding provision to a continuing resolution to fund federal government operations, he's even willing to shut down the government to achieve his goal. That would jeopardize the health, safety and livelihood of every citizen.

Now even members of his own party are abandoning him and objecting publicly to his tactics. They know that even if Cruz's conservative colleagues in the House of Representatives continue passing bills that would de-fund Obamacare, the bill will never pass the Democratically controlled Senate.

Zealotry gets the nation nowhere and has real consequences. It also ignores a serious problem. The Commonwealth Fund 2012 Biennial Health Insurance Survey found that in 2012, 80 million people said over the past year they did not visit a doctor when ill or didn't get prescribed medicine, because of the cost. Also during that year, 84 million people went without health insurance for some period or had such high medical costs that, relative to their income, they were considered uninsured. Yes, Obamacare is bound to be confusing as it's implemented in stages. But Cruz's alternative is the status quo, a system that leaves too many millions of Americans without coverage and thus without care they need.

Cruz's stated mission is not leadership. It's political theater, of which he's the star. Americans deserve better.

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