The Republican governing philosophy has shrunk to just two policies they understand and embrace: tax cuts and gutting health care. Their Trumpcare bill was a tax cuts bill, and now their tax cuts bill is an Obamacare repeal bill. This isn't just any tax cuts bill, though: it's a tax cuts bill that will raise taxes for some, and would give the very wealthiest a tax cut they don't need. And they would do it while taking health insurance away from 13 million people in the next decade. Here's what the $100,000 a year tax cut for the top 0.1 percent, paid for in part by repealing the individual mandate in Obamacare, would do to regular Americans.
- Increase the number of Americans without health insurance by millions starting in 2019, when the individual mandate would be repealed, and by 13 million in 2027, according to recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates. That would increase the uninsured rate for non-elderly Americans from about 11 percent to about 16 percent.
- Increase individual market premiums by about 10 percent, according to CBO. That amounts to a premium increase of hundreds of dollars per year for about 7 million mostly middle-income consumers — and over $1,000 per year for many older people.
- Create further instability for the individual market, especially in the near term. Substantial declines in enrollment and much greater uncertainty and confusion would make it harder for insurers to forecast their risk pools. Some might opt to exit the market altogether.
Oh, that and by taking health insurance away from millions, they can make their corporate tax cuts permanent. It's just the right amount of money to do that, they believe.
That's their trade-off. Corporate America's health—and the top 0.1 percent's wealth—is far more important than yours.
The Republican tax giveaway to the super wealthy is an attack on our healthcare, an attack as dangerous as Trumpcare was. Please, call your senators and member of the House of Representatives at (202) 224-3121 and tell them to vote "no" on the Republican tax bill.