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I'm Caleb Brown.

In the rush to pass tax reform, one change stands out, the end of the individual mandate, sort of. Senate Republicans would

like to not eliminate the penalty, but drive it down to zero. And that distinction

matters. The Cato Institute's Michael Cannon comments.

In the various reform proposals for Obamacare and now in the Senate tax bill, the individual

mandate has in a sense gone away in another sense it's still

there but explain what the Senate bill does with respect to the mandate and why this distinction

about between

getting rid of it and reducing it to zero is important

so obama care imposed this individual mandate which really had two parts.

It said you shall purchase health insurance and then the second part is if you don't

purchase health insurance there will be this penalty.

And if Republicans wanted to get rid of both parts of the mandate, the Senate

parliamentarian says you would need 60 votes in the Senate because you can't

touch that first part through the special reconciliation process that allows you to change

...