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Grassley Says Cruz Healthcare Amendment May Be "Subterfuge"

Flickr / William Patrick Butler

Sen. Chuck Grassley says he probably won’t support an amendment by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to the Senate’s Obamacare repeal bill.  Cruz proposes allowing insurance companies to sell two types of healthcare policies, one that is compliant with the Affordable Care Act and one that is not.

Grassley says he’s concerned how Cruz's amendment might affect people with pre-existing conditions. 

"There’s a real feeling that that’s subterfuge to get around pre-existing conditions," says Grassley. "If it is subterfuge and it has the effect of annihilating the pre-existing condition requirement that we have in the existing bill, than obviously I would object to that."

Accordingto the Kaiser Family Foundation, nearly a quarter of adult Iowans under age 65 have health conditions that would likely leave them uninsurable if they applied for individual market coverage under pre-Obamacare laws. That amounts to an estimated 448,000 people.