THE CALL-#BackdoorStrategy to gut the Affordable Care Act
Senate Republicans have decided to include the repeal of the
Affordable Care Act’s requirement that most people have health insurance into
the sprawling tax rewrite, merging the fight over health care with the
high-stakes effort to cut taxes.
The move to tuck the repeal of the so-called individual mandate
into the tax overhaul is an attempt by Republicans to solve two problems: math
and politics. Repealing the mandate, a longstanding Republican goal, would save
hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade. That would free up money
that could be used to expand middle-class tax cuts or help pay for the overall
cost of the bill, which can add no more than $1.5 trillion to the deficit over
10 years. It could also help secure the votes of the most conservative
senators, enabling lawmakers to pass the bill along party lines.
If it becomes law, the repeal would save more than $300 billion
over a decade but result in 13 million fewer Americans being covered by health
insurance by the end of that period, according to the Congressional Budget
Office. Republicans said on Tuesday that they would use the savings — which
stem from reduced government spending to subsidize health coverage — to pay for
an expansion of the middle-class tax cuts that lawmakers had proposed.
Don't be fooled: they're coming for Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security because these tax cuts are NOT sustainable and will trigger Pay Go down the road. Further, there's language in the section on tuition savings accounts that pave the way for fetal personhood, a concept that's been defeated in state after state and that 70% of Americans do not believe in.
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