It’s difficult to understand why the Republicans in Congress almost unanimously supported the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act with the highly unpopular American Health Care Act. It turns out that the AHCA was not designed as a health care plan, but rather as means to pave the way for Trump/Republican tax cuts.
The New York Times story on May 6 (“The House health care disaster is really about taxes”), reads: “The trick, then, is to make the health care bill’s tax cuts part of that baseline by passing them into law before a tax-reform package. This would provide Republicans with far more room to permanently cut taxes later in the year. In short, Republicans would be able to devise a tax bill that collects about $1 trillion less in revenue but that would still qualify as revenue-neutral under Senate procedure.”
This takeaway of $1 trillion or so from ACA will accommodate the tax cuts — most of which will benefit the wealthy — with a miserly trickle-down effect on the rest of us. The GOP health care strategy is now clear: It’s a $1 trillion “revenue-neutral” tax cut for the rich, “paid for” by a $1 trillion cut to “health care” for millions of Americans.
