For a while, almost everybody ignored him. The only Republican senator who was really lobbying for a tax-bill assault on Obamacare seemed to be Rand Paul, who is now hobbled by injuries he suffered when a neighbor tackled him while he was mowing the grass.

We are still a little mystified by why this happened. Another neighbor told reporters it was a landscaping issue. It does not seem to have been related to health care, and thankfully, the senator has really excellent coverage.

But here’s the question. Why is the Senate choosing to totally complicate its tax-cut pitch, poisoning any possibility of bringing along moderate Democrats, by tossing in an all-out assault on the Affordable Care Act?

A) Rand Paul made them do it.

B) Trump told them: “Get rid of Obamacare or the turkey dies.”

C) Republicans wanted more money for multinational corporations.

Honest to God, it’s C. Just the other day, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told a gathering of C.E.O.s that cutting the individual mandate out of Obamacare would save the government $330 billion over 10 years.

That $330 billion, McConnell said, would allow them “to make permanent the corporate tax rate” and “puff up some of the middle-class tax relief that we would like to puff up.”