The Bill Republicans Just Passed Would Redistribute $800 Billion To The Rich
Republican health plan is a giant tax cut for the wealthy paid for by taking health care away from 24 million Americans.
Republicans in the House finally passed their Obamacare repeal bill Thursday and they quickly ran to the White House to celebrate with Donald Trump. But now that the bill has passed the House even more attention is getting focused on just how disastrous this bill would be for most Americans.
And one of the most dramatic aspects of the Republican law is the part that redistributes almost $800 billion over ten years from poor and middle class Americans to the wealthiest people in the country.
Obamacare raised taxes on the rich in order to pay for subsidizing health insurance for the poor and middle class. The Republican bill reverses that dramatically.
Poor Americans screwed by Republican plan
Obamacare expanded Medicaid coverage to more of the working poor.
The bill Republicans just passed would decimate that Medicaid expansion. According to a Congressional Budget Office report on an earlier version of the bill, at least, 14 million people will lose their Medicaid coverage.
The Congressional Budget Office also estimated that an additional 10 million people will also lose their health insurance because of the reduction in subsidies for low and middle-income Americans. One of the groups hardest hit by the Republican bill is older Americans who will see their insurance prices go through the roof. Under Obamacare, seniors can only be charged 3 times more than young Americans, but under the Republican plan older Americans can be charged five times more than young Americans.
In total, at least 24 million people will lose their health insurance under the Republican plan.
Wealthy get a giant tax cut at the expense of the poor
Obamacare is funded largely through higher taxes on the rich. Those two taxes are a 3.8 percent tax on investment income and a 0.9 percent payroll tax on people earning more than $200,000 or couples making more than $250,000. All that tax money from America’s highest income earners is going to pay for subsidies for lower and middle class Americans. But the Republican plan takes away those subsidies and gives a massive tax cut to the rich. There is also a tax cut for insurance executives making more than $500,000 a year.
It total, the Republican bill would cut taxes by about $765 billion over the next decade.
But don’t worry, it’s not just the wealthy that benefit from the Republican plan. The super-wealthy benefit even more! According to the Tax Policy Center, the top 20 percent of income earners receive 64 percent of the savings and the top 1 percent of earners would receive 40 percent of the tax savings.
