Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton pulled no punches talking about the healthcare plan proposed by House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Asked about Ryan’s message on “The Laura Ingraham Show,” Cotton responded: “Let me just say this, Laura, about this so-called three-phase process. That’s just not going to happen. That’s just politicians’ talk.”

Cotton noted it is doubtful that Senate Democrats would join efforts in phase 3, which they would have to in order to reach 60 votes.

GOP senator slams House GOP's "mythical" strategy to repeal ObamaCare https://t.co/h6Xk8xJ1Wv pic.twitter.com/u7qi1hQfLs

— The Hill (@thehill) March 13, 2017

Cotton referred the promised “phases” 2 and 3 of Paul Ryan’s roadmap to replacing Obamacare as “mythical.”

“Phase 3 is some imaginary bill that might pass with Democratic support,” Cotton said. “Well if we had Democratic support we wouldn’t need Phase 2 and Phase 3, we would just be passing a bill right now with Democrats and more than 60 votes. That’s why it’s important that we get this bill right, because we have no guarantees about what might happen in the mythical Phase 2 and Phase 3.”

He had a response for those who say the choice is only between Obamacare and the current House Bill.

“This legislation has a lot of flaws in it; we can fix those flaws if we take a deliberative approach,” Cotton said. “But it is not a binary choice at this moment that we have to vote on this bill in this kind of rushed fashion, otherwise we will never repeal ObamaCare.”

That outcome is looking more and more likely all the time.

It’s disappointing that after years of promises to repeal Obama’s disastrous health insurance legislation the Republicans are divided on actually doing that. What’s worse is that the underlying principles about why Obamacare is failing are being largely ignored while Speaker Ryan and others focus on wonky policy arguments and garbage-in-garbage-out CBO analyses that convince no one who doesn’t live inside the Beltway.