U.S. Sen. Tom Cottondropped by the friendly confines of Right-Ring Radio KARN this morning to finally be heard on the now-dead Senate health bill that he and 12 white male Republicans met in secret to write.
Jacob Kauffman of KUAR summarizes his remarks this way:
Cotton on KARN: disappointed in healthcare bill flop; “prudent” to back straight repeal; wants replacement made after ’18 election
Now there’s some leadership for you. Cotton backs a straight repeal, which could throw more than a quarter-million people in Arkansas off health coverage. BUT ….. he says delay the impact until AFTER the next election. Presumably so he and his GOP colleagues can continue to run against the swarthy Kenyan and his health legislation which — surprise — turns out to be a whole lot more popular than elections and seven years of resistance indicated.
Bad as the likes of Ted Cruz, Mike Lee etc. can be, at least they stood up. Tom Cotton and Silent John Boozman were in witness protection for the debate, as one radio commentator put it this morning.
It gets better. Cotton also got on his right-wing pal Hugh Hewitt’s show to say he’ll vote for repeal without replacement. Cotton had once said that was a bad idea. From the not-so-way-back machine in January.UPD
GOP Sen. Tom Cotton (Ark.) on Thursday warned his party not to repeal ObamaCare without a replacement ready to go.
“I think it would not be the right path for us to repeal ObamaCare without laying out a path forward,” Cotton said on MSNBC Thursday evening.
“I think when we repeal ObamaCare, we need to have the solution in place moving forward. … I do not think we can just repeal ObamaCare and say we’ll give the answer two years from now.
UPDATE: To no one’s surprise, GOP leadership lapdog John Boozman has emerged to repeal now, something something later. Three strong Republican women may already have beaten that idea.