While Ted Cruz, the fiery tea party icon from Texas, likes to fashion himself as the most devoted fighter in the conservative crusade to dismantle the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, it is his less bombastic rival for the GOP nomination, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who has actually accomplished something to that end. 

The New York Times reports that Rubio slipped an obscure provision into a large spending bill last year that may undermine the ability of insurers participating in the marketplace exchanges set up by the PPACA to continue providing coverage. 

The provision sharply reduced the amount the federal government could put into the "risk corridor" program aimed at offsetting the initial losses some participating insurers experienced because of the disproportionate number of unhealthy people who signed up for exchange plans.