President Donald Trump told Newsmax TV on Friday that "we want to get rid of the individual mandate" of Obamacare in the tax-cut plan introduced this week by House Republicans, "which is a disaster."
"These are people that have to pay not to take this horrible endurance," Trump told "The Joe Pags Show" in an interview. "These are people that are paying money to do something they don't want to do.
"It's probably unheard of. I assume it's been tested legally, but it's unheard of."
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Repealing the Affordable Care Act's mandate was not included in the tax-cut plan released on Capitol Hill on Thursday.
President Trump called for the repeal Wednesday — and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady of Texas had said he was reluctant to include it in the bill because it could jeopardize the tax legislation, as Senate Republicans have been unable to deliver on healthcare reform.
Repealing the Obamacare mandate would save around $400 billion, according to news report, and those savings could be used to finance tax cuts.
But the Congressional Budget Office has said that the repeal would leave 15 million more Americans without insurance and premiums would increase by 20 percent.
Still, President Trump told Pags: "We're going to get rid of the individual mandate, but we're going to be repealing Obamacare.
"We will be replacing."
He then referenced Arizona Sen. John McCain's morning vote in July that killed legislation to repeal several basic Obamacare elements.
"We had the votes until we were surprised late in the morning," Trump said. "We were very sadly surprised by one person — and that's OK, because we're going to have a very, very good healthcare situation.
"We will be repealing and replacing.
"There's a lot of people that want to put the individual mandate repealed," the president said. "They want to do that and they want to put it right into the tax package.
"That could happen — and it probably will happen."
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