XPost: alt.politics.usa, alt.tv.pol-incorrect, alt.politics.republicans   
   From: noone@nowhere.com   
      
   Egaitarianism is the enemy of the people.  If you're not at   
   least a millionaire, who said that you have the same rights as   
   those who are?   If you want cheap health care, go to prison.   
      
   One could go on at length about how terrible a piece of   
   legislation the American Health Care Act is. The bill, crafted   
   by House Speaker Paul Ryan and firmly backed by President   
   Donald Trump, seemingly goes out of its way to heap additional   
   financial hardship on the people who need the most help   
   obtaining health coverage.   
      
   If the legislation as it currently stands were to pass, low-   
   income people would have their premium subsidies cut, older   
   people would face higher premiums and sick people would have to   
   cope with higher deductibles. The Affordable Care Act’s   
   Medicaid expansion would be halted under the AHCA, and   
   Medicaid’s funding would be slashed.   
      
   It’s just an awful, awful bill that solves no problems with the   
   health care system, worsens existing ones and has little   
   political support outside the Republican congressional   
   leadership and the White House.   
      
   That said, the American Health Care Act does accomplish one   
   important Republican policy goal: It rains down tax cuts and   
   other goodies on the rich.   
      
   As I wrote yesterday, the Affordable Care Act is, in the   
   simplest terms, a law that redistributes wealth from the rich   
   to lower-income people so that they can purchase health   
   insurance. The ACA’s premium subsidies are funded, in part, by   
   taxes on the rich. The American Health Care Act repeals two   
   taxes imposed by the ACA that fall exclusively on high earners:   
   a 0.9 percent Medicare surtax on wages and a 3.8 percent tax on   
   investment income. Shedding those two taxes amounts to a total   
   tax cut of about $275 billion.   
      
   As you would probably expect, all that money would go right   
   back to those high earners. According to the Center on Budget   
   and Policy Priorities, nobody making less than $200,000   
   annually would see one red cent from these tax cuts. People who   
   make $500,000 to $1 million annually would receive a relatively   
   modest $4,700 tax break. The real winners of this policy would   
   be millionaires, who would gain an average tax reduction of   
   $54,130. Per the center’s estimates, the top 400 earners in the   
   country (whose annual incomes exceed $300 million) would find   
   their taxes sliced about $7 million apiece as a result of this   
   policy.   
      
      
   All told, the center estimates that by 2025, a full 57 percent   
   of the tax cuts in the American Health Care Act would flow to   
   people making more than $1 million annually. The rich are the   
   big winners here.   
      
   On a policy level, this is hard to justify. Paul Ryan and the   
   rest of the bill’s supporters want to eliminate the revenue   
   raised by the Affordable Care Act and replace it with nothing.   
   But at the same time, they’re proposing to continue subsidizing   
   health insurance for lower-income people, albeit at a far   
   reduced rate. The Republican leadership is hoping that steep   
   spending cuts will somehow make the math work, which is why   
   Medicaid is on the block. But the fact that Ryan and Republican   
   leaders are pushing forward on this bill without waiting for an   
   estimate from the Congressional Budget Office is a pretty   
   strong indicator that they know the numbers just don’t work.   
      
   As a political matter, this whole scheme is fraught with peril.   
   The first major legislative push by Republicans after taking   
   control of the government is, at its core, a tax cut for   
   millionaires financed by slashing health care benefits for poor   
   and elderly people. The bill would almost certainly leave   
   millions of Americans uninsured or with higher out-of-pocket   
   medical costs, all in the pursuit of reducing the tax burden   
   for people like Donald Trump.   
      
   Giving rich people more money is, of course, the thrust of most   
   Republican policymaking these days, and the bill’s supporters   
   don’t seem to care all that much that they’re stumbling into a   
   minefield. Ryan went on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show this   
   week to defend the bill, and Carlson brought up the political   
   danger posed by eliminating the Obamacare tax on investment   
   income.   
      
   “It’s kind of a hard sell to say, ‘Yeah, we’re going to repeal   
   Obamacare, but we’re going to send more money to the people who   
   have already gotten the richest over these last 10 years,’”   
   Carlson told Ryan.   
      
   “I’m not that concerned about it,” Ryan replied, “because we   
   said we were going to repeal all the Obamacare taxes and this   
   is one of the Obamacare taxes.”   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)