In less than a month, Sen. Tom Cotton helped resurrect the presumed-dead GOP healthcare effort by making repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate part of the tax reform fight, Politico reported.
He began his pitch in the Oval Office.
“I am with you 1,000 percent on this,” President Donald Trump told Cotton over the phone earlier this month — repeating the idea in an interview with Newsmax TV Nov. 3.
This week, Senate Republicans climbed aboard, vowing to put a repeal of the mandate in their tax plan and use the $338 billion in savings to plow into more tax cuts.
Cotton told Politico he became convinced the GOP had to target the individual mandate during an Oct. 26 meeting with Senate Finance Committee members — after members detailed a “parade of horribles” — a series of popular tax breaks they ‘d need to rescind.
“I started seeing the looks of hesitancy and outright terror on the faces of my colleagues,” Cotton recalled. “[I] spoke to some of them over the next few days and just realized that if we wanted the tax bill to work within the constraints of the budget, we had to repeal the mandate.”
Cotton told the outlet he spoke privately with White House officials including legislative director Marc Short and Jonny Hiler — a former Cotton aide who leads Vice President Mike Pence’s legislative operation — as well as with the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.
Cotton and Sens. Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania, John Thune of South Dakota and Mike Crapo of Idaho met privately with CBO director Keith Hall to make sure that repealing the mandate would yield at least $300 billion in savings. It was ultimately $338 billion.
"It’s not done in the abstract," Cotton said. "Once you have to compare it to popular, widespread deductions like the mortgage interest deduction or the state and local tax deduction, then a lot of members who might be otherwise reluctant will see that’s the simplest way to deliver more tax cuts for working families."
House Republican sources say if the Senate can repeal the mandate, the House will almost certainly follow suit.