Top Obamacare critic signs up with Rubio

Roy most recently worked for Gov. Rick Perry’s short-lived 2016 bid and is currently a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the opinion editor for Forbes. In addition, Roy was a healthcare adviser for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential bid. He is known as one of the sharpest critics of the Affordable Care Act.

Both parties announced the move on Twitter Monday morning.

In a tweet sent out Monday morning, Roy argued that “no candidate expresses — and embodies — the American dream better” than Rubio himself, adding that he is “honored” to advise the Florida senator on policy.

Rubio, who currently sits fourth in the Washington Examiner‘s latest power rankings, returned the favor with a tweet welcoming him to the team.

“Avik is helping us as a volunteer adviser,” Rubio communications director Alex Conant told the Examiner on Roy’s hire. “We appreciate his support as Marco lays out his agenda for a new American Century.”

While Roy has jumped on the team, he has not always seen eye to eye with Rubio over the past few months. In a May column, Roy criticized the tax reform plan laid out by Rubio and Sen. Mike Lee, saying it promotes “social engineering”, as the plan includes a new child tax credit of $2,500 which would be refundable against income and payroll taxes.

Roy argued that there is no evidence that the child tax credit would actually produce more children, and that the plan would eliminate taxes in one way or another for a large part of the population, adding that the U.S. tax code is the most progressive in “the industrialized world” and would be made worse by the plan.

Roy joins Rubio’s team ahead of the third Republican presidential debate, which will focus on the economy. The 2016 hopeful currently sits third in the latest RealClearPolitics national average with 9.9 percent, with only Donald Trump and Ben Carson leading him.

Roy declined to comment on the move when reached by the Examiner.