Rejecting the "hated Obamacare mandate" as "nothing more than a tax on working families and poor Americans," Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., supports the Senate plan to repeal the individual healthcare mandate and pleads for Congress to return to healthcare after taxes because "we need to solve all the problems that Obamacare made worse in our healthcare system."
"I hope next year that we return to healthcare, but right now I'm focused on this tax bill," Sen. Cotton told CBS's "Face the Nation."
Cotton rebuked criticism of the individual mandate repeal in the Senate GOP tax reform bill as misguided politics, because it does not impact anyone's healthcare, it merely removes the tax on the poor.
"Remember what the hated Obamacare mandate is: It fines an American family that cannot afford their insurance, insurance that Obamacare made unaffordable in the first place," Cotton told CBS host John Dickerson. "This bill doesn't cut a single dime for Medicaid. It doesn't cut from the insurance subsidies. It doesn't change a single regulation under Obamacare. It simply says the IRS cannot fine you if you cannot afford health insurance.
"This had no impact on anyone who wants to get health insurance under Obamacare's individual exchanges, or under the Medicaid expansion, and under their employers plan. It simply says that working families and poor Americans – because four out of five Americans who pay this fine make less than $50,000 – will no longer be fined for not being able to afford their insurance."
When pressed on what the lack of government income to subsidize Obamacare may ultimately do to premiums further down the road, Cotton pointed to those fixes being revisited next year after tax reform is complete in December.
"My answer to that is we need to solve all the problems that Obamacare made worse in our healthcare system," Cotton responded to Dickerson. "We worked on that over the summer. We failed. I wish that wasn't the case.
"But we have a tax bill now that will repeal the most hated and unpopular part of Obamacare, the individual mandate, which is nothing more than a tax on working families and poor Americans."