Quit focusing on helping the rich

The Affordable Care Act has many flaws, but it did provide health insurance to an additional 17 million Americans. Many more would have been covered but for a 2012 Supreme Court ruling that allowed states to elect to opt out of the law’s Medicaid expansion: 19 states, including South Carolina, chose to do so.

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell and a handful of Republican Senate leaders have been trying yet again to put together a new health bill — one that the Republicans in the Senate will accept — in their effort to repeal (easy) and replace (very difficult) Obamacare. The one thing that all of their efforts have in common is that they will hurt the poor and near poor — including millions who voted for Donald Trump — and help the rich.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize winning economist, recently pointed out that while the plan on the table in mid-July eliminates some of the tax cuts for the rich prior versions of the Republican health bill had, it provides the rich with a new tax shelter by allowing the use of health savings accounts, which are “tax-favored,” to pay for their health insurance. Who has the money to put into those accounts — rich people who otherwise would be paying high taxes with those funds. Krugman says it would also “effectively gut protection for people with pre-existing medical conditions.”

Republicans cut taxes for the rich while doing little for those who need a helping hand.

This story was originally published July 25, 2017 at 9:17 AM with the headline "Quit focusing on helping the rich."