Look beyond the bill’s quasi-mandate and tax credits, and the Obamacare replacement bill is a $600 billion tax cut, with the benefits going almost entirely to the wealthy. To pay for its spending, Obamacare included several taxes on couples making more than $250,000, like a 3.8 percent surtax on investment income and a 0.9 percent surtax on wages. Last year, those levies brought in about $27 billion, according to Wall Street Journal analysis of IRS data. Repealing them would cost about $275 billion over the next decade; which is to say, it would transfer $275 billion from public-health spending to the richest 1 or 2 percent. Other provisions, like repealing the limit of flexible spending accounts and expanding health savings accounts, will also disproportionately benefit the rich.
A US Representative from Kansas has apologized for his remarks that poor people do not want healthcare, a statement that has echoes in the White House. In an interview about healthcare with Stat News, Obstetrician Roger Marshall argued that the Affordable Care Act could not be structured to only benefit those with low incomes. "Just like Jesus said, ‘The poor will always be with us.’ … There is a group of people that just don’t want health care and aren’t going to take care of themselves," he told the publication. "Just, like, homeless people. … I think just morally, spiritually, socially, (some people) just don’t want health care," Mr Marshall continued. "The Medicaid population, which is (on) a free credit card, as a group, do probably the least preventive medicine and taking care of themselves and eating healthy and exercising."
1 comment:
Marshall is an ob/gyn??? He's clueless enough that he should switch to pathology! Clearly he fails to grasp that someone needing Medicaid is barely scraping by and has neither the time nor the money for good food and exercise.
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