She still won’t commit to voting for the bill, but at least she appears to be leaning that way. The Senate just jumped a huge hurdle
With Republicans preparing to vote on tax cut legislation next week, Murkowski announced on Tuesday that she would not oppose the bill simply because it includes a provision repealing the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate.
Murkowski made the announcement in an op-ed for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. And she was careful not to promise she’d vote for the final tax legislation.
She read the bill and realized that, like every other mandate “repeal”, all it does is zero out the tax, leaving the requirement itself in place. Moreover, that (potential) zeroing out doesn’t happen until tax year 2019, which means that if Schumer and Pelosi become de juere majority leaders, it won’t happen at all.
….which is to say that the GOPe really, really, really wants to maintain ObozoCare. Deception and trickery is fine with them, so long as they keep it in play.