Tax Cuts for the Rich in the AHCA
Both the Senate and
House versions of the AHCA purport to offer lower cost and better
insurance coverage to all Americans, a claim belied by CBO scoring of
the bills. Careful examination makes clear their true twofold purpose.
Republicans’ proposals are the apotheosis of their decades-long
campaign for “entitlement reform,” with Medicaid as the target.
Provisions in the bill over the next decade will result in reduced
Medicaid spending of nearly one trillion dollars. Their spin on AHCA
focuses on supposed improvements in cost, coverage, and choice. Don’t
be fooled: Trumpcare is about rolling back the health care safety net
to a level that better suits Republican priorities.
The
leviathan in the room, which is decidedly not part of the spin, is the
enormous tax cut for the wealthy built into the bills . . . over $800
billion. “Entitlement reform,” in the form of AHCA, means a massive
transfer of wealth from those with limited means—average Americans—to
the wealthy.
Perhaps the health care bills could be respected at
least as honest efforts to advance Republicans’ philosophical claims:
entitlement programs must be modified in order to save them—respected IF
the bills focused only on that goal. But the addition of the giant
tax cut exposes Trumpcare for what it really is: a cynical and
subversive scheme that uses the fig leaf of
health care policy to
raid the federal treasury and shower the gold on rich Americans. Ask:
why, instead, are Republicans not using that +$800 billion to
strengthen the affordability of insurance and expand coverage to anxious
Americans?
Publishing History
PJ June 29
No comments:
Post a Comment