Before we get to audience questions, i wanted to ask a couple question, when veterans are approaching me, one thing i tell them is you should contact your local congressman or senators office. They can help get you more information. Tonight, we have talked to veterans that were having issues with the va. Can you tell everyone how to get in touch with the office if they are having issues with the va . Senator cruz thank you for hosting and the leadership you provide and for being part of this discussion. I hope we have a candid and frank and real discussion about the challenges veterans face, the challenges our country faces. Some of those challenges are dealing with federal bureaucracy, and it can be confusing, frustrating, maddening. I can tell you in our senate office, we have an extensive team devoted to constituent service, and it is a team with a lot of experience. It is headed by a woman, joyce, who has 30 Years Experience in constituent service. And one of the first things i did when i was newly elected to the senate is i made a call to my predecessor, kay bailey hutchison, who had a history of extensive constituent service, and i said on election day, one i want to your team to know you should not feel they have to move on. I want to talk to them. The folks that are experienced, we want to keep that in the office. So we have a lot of experience, and their job is to serve you. Their job is to help you navigate this byzantine bureaucracy. I want to introduce the Deputy Director of our north texas office. Michael is here. [applause] michael lives in north texas. His job is to work for you. If you have issues with the va or other government aspects, reach out to michael. Our website is cruz. Senate. Gov and we have offices across the state. You can find a phone number to the local office in your region that can connect you straight with our services. I used to be a caseworker myself. We can get you more information and in some cases, finding that information gets your file pulled out of a logjam, so i encourage you to use that. One of the biggest stories about health care in recent years has been the issues at the department of Veterans Affairs with the va healthcare system. Why do you think the va has consistently had problems over the years and we keep having this cycle that we call reform and failure, where you have performs or things get better and then they get back to the way they were, what do you think is causing that . Senator cruz the va has wonderful professionals. Many are veterans themselves, healthcare professionals, other professionals that care deeply about helping and providing care to the veterans. We are grateful for the good service. At the same time, if you look, particularly the last few years, the scandals that have engulfed the va, i think have been nothing short of shameful. We have seen va facilities keeping bogus books, phantom books, lying about it, and wrongfully denying needed care to veterans. In some cases, lifesaving care to veterans. That is disgraceful. That is not how the system should be working. Part of the challenge is it is a massive government bureaucracy, larger than the u. S. Navy, and getting a massive Government Institution to be responsive is difficult. I think two things are needed most importantly. One is accountability. There needs to be real accountability, something i have been fighting for in the senate for years, to provide real accountability. If there are va employees who violated the law, the criminal law, they should be prosecuted, and if they have wrongfully denied care, then they should be terminated or reprimanded as the facts and circumstances dictate. There needs to be accountability that if you are keeping bogus books, you should be out of there. That is not easy to do in the system of the va that resists accountability. I have been pressing in the senate, working with cba, on real Accountability Measures so we hold supervisors and anyone violating the law accountable. A second and broader reform i think is important is choice. I am a passionate believer that every veteran should have the right to see any doctor you choose. It should be your decision. If you want to go to the va, that is your right. You have earned it, you have bled for it, and you should have that right protected. If you want to go to the local doctor down the street, you should have the right to do that, as well. That is the most powerful structural reform is the only way to change the government monopoly is introduce competition, and competition, giving veterans real choice, the biggest benefit of that is that competition is the one thing we can count on to improve the quality of care in the va to shorten waiting times, to make them more competitive, because of veterans have the power to choose the Health Care Professionals you want to see, that empowers you and improves the whole system. Absolutely, and that has been two of the primary reforms. Choice and accountability. We had a new bill that is something we have been working on for years. I know it would not have happened in the previous presidency. With that, what do you think so far with the President Trump is doing at the va . Senator cruz it is early to say. We are six months into the administration, but the president has declared a strong commitment to the va reform and so has the secretary. I am encouraged by that. That commitment to reform is an important starting point. We need to demand real results, and i will say the president s budget. He proposed increasing the budget for the va about 6 billion a year and putting an additional 3 billion into the Choice Program. The Choice Program as it exists now is narrow, but i viewed the existing Choice Program a little bit like the camels nose under the tent, where i am glad to get it started and it want to keep getting that camel crawling under the tent until veterans have full and robust choice. Im encouraged i have been a big supporter of making what is supposed to be a private Program Permanent and expanding it. I think it is a strong sign that the president s initial budget proposed a budget increase for choice, introducing competition and expanding it. Absolutely. Fortunately, as with some things in washington, even with the budget increase, despite other issues we discuss these days, some are viewing it as a budget cut, because it does not increase as previously proposed, but that is the way things work in washington. Pivoting to another issue. You introduced a new bill that would create a new position at the va. Normally, when we think of new government positions, people are suspicious, but can you tell us about this new bill, what it does and why it is important . Senator cruz it is focused on information technology, and it would create a chief Information Officer at the va in charge of all i. T. Through the va. This was one of the recommendations, the commission on care came out with last year because if you look at i. T. , it has been a troubled area of the va, whether you are dealing with Electronic Health records, realtime locations of medical equipment, which the lack of that has caused significant problems in terms of sterilizing equipment, infection. You look at private hospitals, they are moving towards using technology to improve inventory, safety and health care outcomes, and the va has been lagging behind. Another critical piece of it, we talked a minute ago about the bogus recordkeeping. Well, having a fully integrated, unified i. T. System would make that much, much harder to happen, because if you had the records where you had one centralized system that was strong i. T. It becomes much harder to hide the delays and it becomes apparent to see if there are waiting periods, you cannot hide it. Adding a chief officer will hopefully help transition the va to using i. T. In our Technology Much more effectively. Absolutely. One of our former advisers who works with the va was with the commission on care, and he says you cannot run a Health Care System without using the same technology rules as the department of education. I think you hit on a key point that the current gaps in the system were exploited to hide the wait times. You should be suspicious about new government positions but i think it is a good step forward and a great bill. Pivoting to other issue senator cruz by the way, there is another area i wanted to expand the position, and that is our embassy in iceland, because i think in dealing with recalcitrant eurocrats, it would not be a bad thing to transfer about 10,000 of them to iceland. [laughter] [applause] interestingly, that was the tactic that the va used, but hopefully, this new legislation, that will not happen. Pivoting to another issue. Defense spending reform, you were on the Senate Arms Service committee. You just finished completing the National Authorization act. For those of you who do not know, that is the defense policy and spending level for the u. S. Military for the next fiscal year. You guys moved quickly this year. Were you satisfied with the product that came out of the committees work . Senator cruz i think it is a very strong bill. I have served the last five years on the Arms Service Committee and have spent that time fighting for the men and women of our military. One of the critical priorities is rebuilding the military. The last eight years, we have seen our military budget devastated. We have seen the impact of sequestration, the result has been readiness levels have dropped, troop strengths are down, modernization is down, training and equipment is down. We are in a bad, bad shape. As distressing as the Public Information is, if you go to a classified briefing on what our adversaries are doing, what russia, china, north korea, and iran are doing, it will scare the living daylights out of you. This is getting to be a more and more dangerous world and our ability to defend ourselves on one front, much less two or three at a time, is dramatically below what it needs to be. The National Defense authorization act, which last week passed the senate arms committee, increases the authorization for funding for the military and increases it to 700 billion. That is a big deal. That is serious funding to take care of the needs to increase our troops, our strength and readiness. One of the important aspects is the f35 program. The f35 program i have been a strong champion of in the senate. It is enormously impactful in north texas. You have over 30,000 jobs in the state of texas dependent on the f35 program. It is critically important to our National Security and our ability to protect ourselves. The recent red flag exercises, f35 participated for the first time. Had over a 20 to 1 kill ratio. That is then advantage. Several weeks ago, i had the chance to fly in f35 flight. Got up, full cockpit, everything, got in in, did a bombing run. Shot down to fighters and then landed on an aircraft carrier. I cant fly. The amazing thing is i actually landed on the carrier, did not crash, did not blow it up. I was very glad. It does Say Something about the technology of it that someone who is not a pilot was able to do it. The Stealth Technology on that is such that flying up with the instructor by my side, were flying through the air and he says, there are two fighters. They cannot see you. You are invisible on their radar. Lets mark them ,and we will get them later. We went and did the bombing run, hit the target, blew it up. He said, lets go back. We turned around, took out the fighters. They could not see me. All they saw was missile and boom. We went to land on the carrier, the technology was on the screen and you had just the trapezoid that you just keep directing to be on the runway, and we landed and caught, and it is amazing technology. One of the important things about Defense Authorization act is its substantial increases are authorization to purchase new f35 for the United States and allies. That is a big deal for defending the country. The f35 is the largest Procurement Program in dod history. I think it is getting to a point where they are working out the kinks, but they would be general acknowledgment that we have had trouble in development and procurement to history. Senator mccain has talked a lot about that as chairman of the Arms Service Committee. They have been talking about changing some of these acquisitions and Development Systems that ensure we do not get delays or cost overruns. Do you think the Senate Version can continue some of the work you have been doing on that over the past years . Senator cruz i do, and i think it is moving in a positive direction. The f35 had significant cost overruns and we should be concerned about that. That is something the president was outspoken on, and i encouraged him on reducing cost but not in jeopardy to the program. The program is too important to our National Defense. It is fine to try to reduce the cost. That is a responsible use of taxpayer resources, but we need to maintain the integrity of the program. One of the things i help do was facilitate a conversation between the ceo of Lockheed Martin and the president , have that conversation where the administration came out in support of the f35 but saw some cost reduction. I think that is a positive back and forth in terms of a winwin for everybody. It is also part of the reason we see with big procurement contracts are prices going through the roof. Going to one cliff after another and another, we do not have the ability to plan out a run of purchases over a longterm, i hope we get past that. There are a lot of challenges in the senate, but i hope we get past that because having Adequate Funding and study and predictable funding is an important part of procurement perform in common sense reforms to improve the process. One last question before audience questions. You have been a strong supporter in the pentagon audit. It i recall, you asked general mattis a question about that during his hearings and you supported legislation to make that happen. Is the dod moving toward a point where it can be audible . Senator cruz that was one of the first bills introduced in the senate, a bill to audit the pentagon. We do not have a reliable audit of the pentagon. That is amazing for those in the private sector. Imagine if you could not audit the company. That would be a ridiculous outcome and you get the feds mad at you. Well, the pentagon is an organization where we do not have an audit, we do not know where the money is being spent. I think we are making some progress in that regard. It is something that continue to press. I pressed secretary mattis in private and also publicly, but we need to continue to press for fiscal accountability. That is one of the ways you direct resources where they need to go. The prior administration, the obama administration, had enormous funds that were going down holes, wasting money. I recall several years ago, about 7 billion in their alternative Fuels Program that included algae fuel for navy boats, and they were spending massive amounts of money on trying to run ships on algae. I had some fairly heated exchanges. [laughter] i know that is hard to believe with the former secretary of the navy, where he explained the private sector was not in a position to innovate when it came to energy, and it was going to be the military that was going to redesign our Global Energy system. I suggested perhaps those the air force built a wind farm in alaska that they had to shut down because they discovered where they built it, the wind did not blow. [laughter] what i suggested over and over is instead of political boondoggles, we invest the money in our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, training, equipment and tools we need to win wars . [applause] we will go into audience questions. It is probably best we do not talk about the former navy secretary. Sen. Cruz when you said you spoke profanity, i would mention there are some senators i am not sure speak english. I am from arizona. Senator cruz i will decline to comment. A good navy men. Now, we will transition to audience questions. We have great questions. If we do not get to your question, we will give it over to the senators staff. Senator cruz wanted to take questions. He said we need to do questions and engagement. I think that is important. I will call out the name of the individual and where are our microphone runners . Jim, our press secretary, he will come over to you. If you are in a middle seat, i would ask you step out and ask the question and the senator will answer. First, dominic in the front. This is a really good question. The previous va bill passed in 2014 had some accountability for senior executives, and it was overturned in the court. Dominic, one of our best volunteers, is concerned that the new va accountability bill will not stand up in court. Do you think it has a better chance of surviving lawsuits that were faced by the previous bill . Senator cruz dominic . Thank you for all that you do and we appreciate all of it. Basically, my concern is every time we turn around, there is something in the news about being challenged in court. What do you think as far as the court and if it would be overturned or how that would work . Senator cruz thank you for your service and let me broadly say to everyone, thank you for your service. We are grateful for you defending this nation. [applause] you are right to be concerned about any commonsense reform being challenged in litigation. Apparently, the epa has turned out the lights. [laughter] we might have flipped a breaker. Senator cruz all right, so we will have a townhome in the dark a townhall in the dark. We are in texas, we ought to just light a fire. That woke the hotel up. Say light a fire, and someone ran to get the circuit breaker. [laughter] it is like any time i talk about the Second Amendment in texas, i am afraid people will pull out their guns and shoot in the air. Which has a way of making the venue hosting you really unhappy. Concernedght to be about legal challenges, it is fair to expect them. When Congress Steps in and ask and passes legislation is there a chance we will see activist courts coming in and trying to undo legislation or undue executive action . Sure. We saw an example of that, most recently with the president s of immigrationtricting coming from countries with high degrees of terrorism. You had to federal courts of appeals step in and issue orders saying that order. [applause] knowor cruz many of yall i was a solicitor general of techs. I spent five and a half years representing this great state before the u. S. Supreme court. ,hose court of appeals decision i believe would work with flawless judicial actions. What was striking is, there is finding federal statute giving the president extraordinary elite Broad Authority to restrict immigration in the National Interest and the interest of National Security. Thecourts did not even site statute. It is not like they discussed and considered what the law was, they just ignored the law. What was particularly striking is those two orders, the u. S. Supreme court just recently agreed to hear that case, but in the course of that, the Court Reversed the injunction from the courts appeals and did so unanimously. Remarkableairly statement. All nine justices, including voted toa nominees unanimously revert much of it, not all of it, but much of the injunctions put in place. That is an indication of just how lawless it was when you get complete unit m immunity along the courts. Of provisionsger being attacked in court . Yes. We are seeing attorney state of generals trying to frustrate policy from the new administration. Litigation you can expect, you might see activist judges disregarding the law. If we have judges following the law, there is nothing in the law that prohibits real accountability in the v. A. , ensuring we get real change. Next question is from roy about veterans choice and why they cannot use local medical facilities. Just step out to the side there. First off, i would like to salute you for your service to america and to the veterans of texas. Senator cruz thank you. [applause] my concern is about the veterans hospitals. My dad is a world war ii veteran. They put him on a bus, shipped him to dallas, and he would stay there the rest of the day, and then he would ride a bus back to do something he could do it is general hospital. Home to do something he could do as local hospital. You talk about the big bureaucracy of the v. A. Why do we have to have all these v. A. Hospitals if we could do what you started, where veterans can go anywhere they want to go . They will show their cards, get your service done, and you are done. You wont need all the a half all the va hospitals. Im not saying you have to close them down. But why not use them for our disabled and homeless vets . They would have someplace to go with cafeterias and everything. Just taking care of vets with hospitals we dont need. [applause] sen. Cruz let me ask you, how old is your dad . He is dead. Oh. Cruz well thank you for his service. What you are describing is crazy. It doesnt make any sense. Who would set up a system like that . It is not reasonable. It is not rational. It is not logical. , basic the cure for it economics 101. Government monopolies are inefficient in providing a good or service. If you want to improve that good or service, you create competition. That is the most effective way. My objective in expanding choice is to improve the v. A. And the quality of care for veterans. Thehe sort of thing existing Choice Program is very narrowly circumscribed. For example, you have a 40 mile radius rule that limits the number of people that can access it. I dont think that makes any sense at all, particularly because the 40 mile rule, you might have a v. A. Facility within 40 miles that cant perform the service you need. It doesnt do any good if you need a bypass and you have a Dental Clinic or by clinic nearby. That doesnt fit. Choice is nobody understands your health code Health Care Needs better and cares more for you and your family better than you do. I am reminded of one of my favorite exchanges, former texas senator bill graham. He was at a senate hearing, and there was this liberal witness testifying. Senator graham said, you know, nobody loves my kids more than i do. This young, earnest liberal interjected, with all respect, senator, that is not true. I care about your kids every bit as much as you do. Lean forward and said, really . What are their names . [laughter] you are in the best position to make the decision about where to get the best health care. My guess is, is that are in if veterans had that choice we have incredible hospitals with incredible professionals. It may choose that a lot of veterans continue to keep going to the v. A. , particularly for Service Related injuries. Theres a lot of expertise. Many veterans want to go there, then it have to provide the service i need. That there may be other areas. If you needed the diet interest if you need a podiatrist, it may be that the best but i treat the vast gayatri the best podiatry is not at the v. A. What care do you want from what facility . It wouldnt be a washington mandate dictating what happens at every facility. It would be the veterans deciding. The more we can move towards full, robust choice where you have the ability to go and pick where to get your care, the better care you are going to get , and the better the the a is going to get because they will know the v. A. Is going to get because they will know best way to get patients is to provide better care for the patients. If they think you on a waiting list and not give you the service, the private hospital would shut down. The v ahaz veterans cap the v. A. Has veterans captive right now. Competition is designed to improve the quality of the whole system. Thank you, senator. This is a good followup question from the other perspective. Where is charlotte . They have a question about concerns about whether choice will lead to the v. A. Being dismantled. Good to see you. You keep going over and saying choice, choice, veteran choice. It is actually not the veterans choice. It is a Community Delivered network emojis like an hmo or ppo. That means someone decides the doctors that are in the network. It isnt that a veteran has Carte Blanche to go to any doctor. It is a doctor within the network. Shortsighted very to tell veterans that they have the choice and get veterans on board to support the choice when it isnt a choice. It is actually a Community Delivered hmo or ppo style, where you go to the doctors within that network. The other issue that is not being addressed is the shortage of riemer he care physicians in the private sector primary care physicians in the private sector. Those things are not being addressed by the powers that be. You mentioned competition he added. Competition being added. We gave you the draft of the proposal for the new care package that will replace choice. It will just be rebranded as care. In that proposal, he wants to remove the laws that mandate competition for federal contracts. If one person it is one person deciding which doctors become part of the network, not the veterans choice. I think there needs to be an expansion in the conversation, and this choice as a term needs to be very closely and carefully looked at and monitored, and veterans need to be aware this is not Carte Blanche like some people said for a veteran to go see anyone. You are still mandating who the veterans get to see because it is a network, not a choice. Thank you. [applause] thank you. Lunch today at a roundtable of a number of veterans leaders here in north texas. Thank you for joining us for that. I think we had a good and robust discussion that was helpful and productive. Listen, i emphatically agree with you that the existing choice plan is not remotely like where we would like to end up. It started up as a small pile. It is being expanded. But it needs to be expanded dramatically more. Right now it is not doing the job, but it is a start in the process. What i would like to see his full choice, robust choice. The ability of veterans to choose your doctor. The existing program doesnt do that. I readily agree. 20 things we talked about at lunch today, and i wanted the input from veteran leaders here what are thes, is next steps to expand and improve the Choice Program and moved towards the goal of full and robust choice . One of the topics that came about lunch today was that if you get choice authorization for one visit to a private practitioner, that doesnt necessarily cover the followup visit the next followup visit. You get it up with a veteran who thinks you are being covered and suddenly you have a big deal. That doesnt a big bill. That doesnt make a whole lot of sense. I thought that was a productive suggestion. I agree networks limiting the choice is not the direction to go, but my focus and this is my focus on my embrace of choice and competition is not limited to the v. A. I am a big believer that the more individuals can have choice, the more competition we have, the better. That is front and center. We are obviously having major debates about obamacare. I am doing everything i can to lead the fight to repeal obama care and give people choice. [applause] the same principle applies in education. I am deeply passionate when it comes to school choice. It is an issue i have been active in for decades. The principle is much the same, that if you want to improve a system, the best way to do it is an power the consumers to make choices. The objective of school choice, my objective, is to improve Public Schools, to empower parents and teachers when they can choose their best options what we have seen. We have seen that the Choice Programs all across the country, where they have been implement have seen quality improving because the Public Schools respond to the ability of teachers and students, particularly in low income, often minority, students and parents, to pull the kids out. That competition improves the quality of service. After area after area, the more competition, the more choice, the more it is you deciding for your family, the better off we are. I have to say that quite clearly you have read the proposal. A lot of members unfortunately of the senate have not read it yet. I need to commend you for that. I would say from cba perspective, were looking at that proposal. Is an important step in the right direction. Youre absolutely right when you said it would not be unfettered choice. It is creating networks. Openings an important up of the aperture more and helping it build up that network. It is a three to fiveyear, tenure process. I would say want that 10 year process. One thing they should be committed for is the pilot programs in testing out new ideas. That is going to be important to seeing, does this work . Does it not work . Can we provide veterans care through this or not . But it is an excellent question. I want to follow up with another big issue with choice with misty. Where is misty . Has a question about reimbursements for private providers, something that needed to be addressed in the Choice Program. I am a Small Business owner, a psychologist. I am one of those overflow doctors who sees veterans who can be seen by the v. A. , which means i do take a pay cut to do that. It is a service i provide because i want to help veterans. Health, which is a hugely important issue for veterans. I dont need to tell you all that. The rate of suicide is very high. Here is the thing. You all on the hill are scaring the living daylights out of us with the health care nonsense you are doing. One of the problems you have when you talk about providers is you have reimbursement issues. People saying that Insurance Companies can opt out of paying for health care, Mental Health care, who is going to pay us to do that . We have to get paid. We cant just provide services for free. What are you going to do to help make sure Mental HealthCare Services are reimbursed at a proper rate so we can continue providing services for veterans . [applause] misty, thank you for that question and the difference you are making, caring for your patience and for veterans. You are right, Mental Health is an enormous challenge in our community, but especially in the community of veterans. It has been a persistent challenge. Let me break it into a couple of pieces. Lets talk about veterans and the v. A. , and more generally. Part of your question was about obama care and health care outside the veterans world. Lets talk about them one at a time. In the v. A. When it comes to choice, there has been persistent problems in the existing Choice Program about reimbursement rates for private providers not being sufficient, about extensive delays in reimbursements where private providers take on veterans, ride the care, provide the care, and get reimbursement can be month after month after month. That is something i am trying to press individually at different v. A. Facilities. That is something we need to see throughout the system at greater speed, reimbursement at a fair and reasonable rate. That is all part of the gradual improvement of the Choice Program. I am glad for the first step. I think we need to make incremental improvements on that. Shifting for a moment to outside the veteran world to obamacare, listen. When it comes to obamacare, in obamacare the last seven years has proven to be a manifest disaster. Now well, let me flesh out some of the pieces. It is an enormous job killer. One of the things i do throughout the state of texas is Small Business roundtables throughout the state. I have done this since i was elected to the senate, traveling around the state, sit down with typically 20 or 30 Small Business owners around the table and open it up. Just say, lets go around the table and share the concerns waiting on your heart. Share the challenges. Lets talk about the. I have done a bunch of these. I have never done a Small Business roundtable where at least half of the Small Business owners didnt list obamacare as the single biggest challenge they have. When they come to jobs and employment, there are two groups. One group known as the 49ers because obamacare kicks in at 50 employees. There are literally millions of Small Businesses across texas and the country that are at 47, 48, 49 employees, and they dont grow over 50 because over 50 they fall under obamacare. That means there are millions of jobs we could be having. They want to grow, they want to expand, but obamacare drive them out of this. There is a second group called ers that have been forced into parttime work because obamacare kicks in at 30 hours a week, so they are stuck at 29 or 30 hours a week. Youre not helping anyone if they want to work full time, they want to provide for their family, and instead they have to work parttime two or three jobs. To dont get health care from any of the jobs because they are parttime everywhere they dont get health care from any of the jobs because they are parttime everywhere. Also on the health care side. On the health care side, we have seen is millions of people who have lost their insurance plans. We already the president said, if you like your plan, you can keep it. Many americans discovered that is not true. Millions of americans have lost their doctors. Theident obama promised average family will see their premiums drop 2500 a year. In fact, under obamacare, the average familys premium have risen over 5,000 a year. I think it is critical for congress, for the majority that were elected, that we honor our promise to repeal obamacare. It isnt working and people are hurting across the state in the country. Number two, i think the most important focus is on lowering premiums. Peoplegle biggest reason are unhappy with obamacare is they cant afford Health Insurance premiums. I hear that every single day as i travel to. People come up to me and say, i cannot afford to provide health care for my family, to get insurance for my family. It is obamacare that has caused to those premiums to skyrocket. We have got to fix it. The process of repealing it in congress has been messy. It has been bumpy. I am not certain we will get it done. I hope we will. I believe we will. In the senate, we have a very narrow republican majority. We have 52 republicans. The democrats have made clear they are not willing to work with us on any productive steps on health care. We have 48 hard nos. That means to get this done, we have got to somehow bring together at least 50 of those 52 republican. That isnt easy. I think the best way to do it is to focus on lowering premiums. How the lower premiums . Point withack to the the v a how to improve quality of care. You do it but opposition you do it by competition. If you want lower prices, more options, more choices, what does obamacare do . Fewer options, which produces higher prices. What i oppressing senate republicans, lets focus on lowering premiums, and that is a winwin for everyone. You make reference for example [indiscernible] well, i and answering it right now. [indiscernible] sen. Cruz look, these are all good questions, so im happy to have a conversation about it. The consequence of what we have right now is a obamacare part of obamacare is what is called title i, a series of 12 insurance mandates that mandate what every insurance policy has to cover. When youem with that, made at the has to cover, you drive the cost up so high that a lot of people cant afford it. Doesnt do any good if you mandate every policy as to cover all this stuff and a bunch of people cant afford any and they dont get any insurance, you are not helping. Peoplere a whole lot of that dont necessarily need or want full conference of coverage of everything. But they do want, for example, catastrophic care that they say, if, god for bid they discover that they have got some horrible cancer or they get hit by an 18 wheeler and www. Cspan. Org [indiscernible] sen. Cruz sir, i am happy to answer you, but i am happy to answer your question, but i a couple of months ago i did a cnn debate on obamacare. It was a two hour debate with bernie sanders. For those who are particularly interested in this issue, i would commend you to go in google it. Plus the whole thing. It was more substance on health care than we probably had the whole president ial debate. View, he wantss free everything for everyone. In a is a Wonderful World where you believe in santa claus and the easter bunny and pixie fairies, you can get free everything to everyone. But in the real world, that doesnt work. What politicians do all the time is they mandate. We are going to get free stuff to people. You have to get this, you have to get that. The prices rise so i that so high that people cant afford it. Let me give you a real world example. To am happy to engage answer your questions, but i would not engage in a yelling back and. If you want and forth. Back and forth. Sir, i am trying my very best. It is not going to work if you are interrupting me every second. Let me give you a real world example. The day after the debate with bernie sanders, i went to a restaurant in d. C. Two waitresses who i know well came up to me and both said they had watched the debate the night before. One of them said, you know, under obamacare, my Health Insurance premiums have tripled. They used to be 400 a month. Now they are 1200 a month. She said, i cant afford 1200 thousand adult 1200 a month, so i cant have Health Insurance. She also said at the same time, the restaurant she has worked at a lot of years, for the first time ever, lowered her to under 30 hours a week. She went to the hr website and they had cap her had capped her at 29. 99 hours. She was scared. The other waitress who was there, who i know well also, did have Health Insurance. She told she was pregnant with her first baby. She has since had a little girl. She and her husband are really excited about the baby. She had just gotten a notification in the mail from her insurance policy that the doctor that she knows and trusts and relies isnt covered and can deliver her baby. Or member, obama said if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. For her, that was a real. Buzz of them said please do something about this disastrous law both of them said please do something about this disastrous law. People are being hurt by it over and over and over again. It is all fine and good to mandate that everyone get coverage for everything at all time, but what happens in practice is that prices go so high that a whole lot of people are left out of the cold. Last year 6. 5 Million People were fined by the irs because they couldnt afford to purchase Health Insurance. Think about it. If you are struggling to make ends meet, you cant afford Health Insurance, and the irs finds you on top of that, how is that helping someone with mark someone . [indiscernible] sen. Cruz my answer is to give them choice. [applause] and sir, let me give you another example. We are talking about Small Business roundtables. I did a Small Business roundtable in odessa. A gentleman there who owned a steakhouse told me about his on, what his aunt, 101 years old. She had just had her insurance policy canceled. The reason her insurance policy was canceled is because it didnt cover maternity coverage. He said, you know what . By what hundred oneyearold aunt is perfectly fine with that. [laughter] [indiscernible] sen. Cruz it is easy in the political arena for somebody to demagogue and say, if you allow anyone to purchase an insurance without maternity coverage, then you just hate moms and hate maternity coverage. But the truth of the matter is mandating all of the benefits that have to be covered in every circumstance with no exceptions drives up the cost and hurts a lot of people. You are asking your question about the amendment that i have introduced it i am trying to get into the Senate Repeal bill called the Consumer Freedom amendment. What it says is the following, that if an Insurance Company sells a plan in a state that is compliant with the title i mandate that you all are defending, that they can also sell in that state any other plans consumers desire. Now that doesnt take away anything. It means there will be plans that are providing coverage with the protections for Mental Health coverage, preexisting conditions. All of those will be provided. But there will also be additional plans. They may be skinnier plans. They may not have full, copperheads of coverage. But people may choose to buy them who couldnt afford any insurance. You take someone with no insurance and give them a chance to purchase something that provide them some care, some help, some safety net. That is a real improvement. I think it is the end i think at the end of the day, patients are in a better position to decide what coverage they want and what coverage they dont, rather than have washington say. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, we are over time. If we didnt get to your question, we are going to hand it over to the senators staff to get back to you. I want to thank you all for coming up tonight. I forgot to recognize two gentlemen, matt morris and jerome. These two gentlemen are with one of our partner organizations, american prosperity. They played a big role in helping get this together. A want to make one last plea, we need love to get involved at the grassroots level. We have important state policy issues coming up here in texas and the federal ones, as well, talking about the future of veterans choice. We need you all to stay involved. Senator, any last words . Sen. Cruz i want to say again to all the veterans who are here, thank you for your service. We are grateful for your standing up and fighting for our nation. Is an tell you, it incredible and unbelievable privilege to represent 28 million texans and to have the opportunity every day to go washington forn jobs and economic growth. That is my priority. Millions of new jobs, better opportunities for your kids and your family. Is the greatest privilege of my life to represent you and to fight for you. God bless each and everyone of you. [applause] thanks, everybody. Thank you for coming out. Coming up sunday morning, the future of u. S. Russian relations. And efforts to combat the Opioid Crisis in america. Jennifer reports on whether the senate will replace the Affordable Care act. Watch cspans washington journal live sunday morning. Join the discussion. Night on afterwords. Like someone like steve jobs can sell this project. That is a shade of the story. He had a lot to do with it. Even the iphone never would have happened without scores of people working around the clock. Brian merchant on the creation and development of the iphone. He is interviewed by steve lord. The iphone was born as this software interaction paradigm behind his back. Guys started basically experimenting. It was fun. It was wild kind of stuff. They had this crazy projector rigged to create what would become the iphone. Cspanh afterwords on 2s book tv. Coming up next, a debate on Customer Data and privacy. Bill kristol moderates a discussion on the concept of american patriotism. Talks aboutt trump the importance of promoting womens entrepreneurship in developing countries. Up next, a debate on whether tech come companies should help with proper search warrants. And, michael chertoff. This is cohosted by the intelligence squared u. S. Foundation and the National Constitution center in san francisco. [applause] speaking of the applause energy, because ultimately we reduced the overall evenings discourse into a 50 minute because of that we are going to do bits of production in front of you. You will see me say things