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Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she would support repealing the Affordable Care Act’s individual insurance mandate, giving a potential boost to the Republican effort to pass a massive tax cut package next week. “I believe that the federal government should not force anyone to buy something they do not wish to buy, in order to avoid being taxed,” Murkowski wrote in an opinion piece published Tuesday by the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. (Paletta, 11/21)

Murkowski's renewed support for repealing the mandate — after repeatedly opposing her party's Obamacare repeal bills this year — may be a boon for Senate Republicans' tax legislation, which includes mandate repeal and is expected to be taken up on the Senate floor next week. A spokesperson for Murkowski told POLITICO that the comments should not be construed as support for the tax bill, which does not yet appear to have sufficient support to pass the chamber. (Diamond, 11/21)

Murkowski, a key moderate swing vote, wrote in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner that she supports giving people additional freedom by repealing the mandate, which requires people to have insurance or pay a fine. "Repealing the individual mandate simply restores to people the freedom to choose," Murkowski wrote. "Nothing else about the structure of the ACA would be changed." (Sullivan, 11/21)

The American Academy of Actuaries is warning Congress against repealing ObamaCare’s individual mandate in tax reform, saying the move could lead to higher premiums and insurers leaving the market. The group warned in a letter to Congress on Tuesday against repealing the mandate in tax reform, as Senate Republicans propose. (Sullivan, 11/21)

Health system leaders face post-Thanksgiving indigestion as Senate GOP leaders race toward a floor vote on their sweeping tax-cut bill before the end of November. Not-for-profit executives are concerned the Senate bill would hurt hospital capital financing by prohibiting advance re-funding of prior tax-exempt bond issues, which made up about 25% of the municipal tax-exempt bond market in 2017. (Meyer, 11/21)

The mandate to buy health insurance is the broccoli of Obamacare—the part you have to accept if you want the goodies, like affordable coverage of people with costly pre-existing conditions. Now Senate Republicans are saying you don’t have to eat your broccoli anymore. They eliminate the penalty for lack of coverage in their version of the $1.5 trillion tax cut bill, which they aim to vote on after Thanksgiving. (Coy and Kapur, 11/22)

Kaiser Health News: Podcast: ‘What The Health?’ Meanwhile, In Other Health News…

Most followers of health policy have been consumed lately by the potential repeal or alteration of the Affordable Care Act, as well as the ongoing open enrollment for individual insurance for 2018. But that’s far from the only health news out there. In this episode of “What the Health?” Julie Rovner of Kaiser Health News, Joanne Kenen of Politico, Alice Ollstein of Talking Points Memo, and Sarah Jane Tribble of Kaiser Health News discuss some of the important but under-covered stories you might have missed this fall, including prescription drug price fights and women’s reproductive health. (11/21)