It’s taken a few days to parse through the impact of the American Health Care Act revealed by Republicans as their replacement plan for Obamacare. Now that we have, it’s horrifying.
This new bill is straightforward about its intentions: it does not care about the health of American citizens. It cares about the cost - or rather, the minor burden that the top wealthy families in America should be shouldering on behalf of the poor, but aren’t. In other words, this new bill is going to give the rich massive tax breaks or funnel money directly into their pocket (for insurance companies) while the poor, sick and elderly are slapped with higher premiums by insurance companies or dropped altogether.
Some 24 million Americans are expected to lose their insurance by 2020, not just undoing the 20 million who gained insurance under Obamacare but making the situation worse than it was before Obamacare was enacted. It would “reduce the debt,” by which of course, they mean reduce the amount of people the government is helping and keep that money in the pockets of rich people.
There’s $1 trillion worth of cuts for insurance companies and and big pharma, while premiums are going to go up for the poorest. Proportionally, the rich are getting bigger tax cuts than the middle class and the poor, by a notable amount.
This plan, in short, is inhumane. It’s abhorrent. It’s no wonder Trump has been reluctant to have his name tied to the bill, as it’s garbage and has received public backlash even from Republicans.
Nevertheless, this bill perfectly reflects how Trump wants the government to function. If Trump is backing away from the bill now it’s only because he didn’t realize how many of his voters actually do want him to do something for the little guy (them), not just the rich, and he’s uncomfortable with realizing his actions are being criticized by his own supporters.
The New York Times posits that the tax cuts in this plan are a precursor to government plans to generally cut taxes for the wealth across the board. That will significantly diminish the government income even as Trump wants to ramp up the trillions we spend on defense and build a massive, unnecessary wall. It’s the perfect storm for another disgustingly massive increase in the national debt, the likes of which haven’t been seen since Ronald Reagan single handedly blew the national debt from $998 billion to $1.86 trillion.
To reiterate: Trump wants to mirror Reagan, who increase the national debt from $998,000,000 to $1,086,000,000,000 during his time in office. That’s a 186 percent increase. And that’s the numbers we may be facing again based on Trump’s policies.
The AHCA is not a healthcare plan, it’s the first step in removing healthcare for millions of Americans and the next step to widening the alarming gap between poor and rich. This is Trump’s vision of the future: one where his small handful of golfing buddies all have unfathomable wealth they will never be able to use in 100 lifetimes, and the rest of the country has to choose between medical care and groceries.