Price’s reply was to take a nostalgic look back at the bad old days before insurers had to cover everyone: “It’s really perplexing, especially from the insurance companies,” he’s quoted saying in the report, “because all they have to do is dust off how they did business before Obamacare.”

Price was referring to Cruz’s amendment, which would allow insurers to go back to selling policies that leave out key benefits, such as prescription drugs or mental health treatment—policies referred to in numerous reports as “junk policies.”

“A single risk pool, which is what they’re objecting to, is exactly the kind of process that wasthat has been utilized for decades to care for individuals,” Price added.

The report points out that “In discussing their health care plan, Republicans do not usually speak as candidly as Price about returning the nation’s health care system to its pre-Obamacare period, a period marked by egregious insurance company abuses. Protections for pre-existing conditions remain highly popular around the country, and GOP lawmakers are loath to admit their policies would weaken them.”

In pre-ACA days, it adds, 79 million people went without health insurance or were underinsured.