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Congress Wants to Cut Your Health Care -- And Billionaires' Taxes
But health care costs, not corporate taxes, are the real drain on the U.S. economy.
May 20, 2017
Members of the House GOP were in a hurry on May 4 to pass their bill to gut Obamacare. They rushed it through before anyone even had a chance to check its cost or calculate its impact on people's access to insurance.
Their urgency, however, had little to do with health care. The real reason for the rush? To set the table for massive tax cuts.
Indeed, the House health plan would give a $1 trillion boon to wealthy households and pave the way for still bigger corporate tax cuts to come, as part of the so-called "tax reform" they're pushing.
Meanwhile, dismantling the Affordable Care Act will cause up to 24 million people to lose their health coverage, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. (Though even that estimate is based on the less extreme version of the bill that failed to pass in April. The new plan may be even worse.)
Why would a GOP politician support an unpopular bill that fewer than 20 percent of voters think is a good idea? Why risk angry constituents showing up at town hall meetings?
Put simply, to please their wealthy donors and Wall Street corporations. For complex legislative reasons, repealing Obamacare's taxes on the rich first will make it easier for them to slash corporate taxes next.
As the "tax reform" debate begins, prepare for sermons about how cutting taxes for rich and global corporations will be great for the economy. Slashing the corporate tax rate, we'll be told, will boost U.S. competitiveness.
But if Congress were really concerned about the economy, policy wouldn't be driven by tax cuts. The real parasite eating the insides of the U.S. economy isn't taxes, billionaire investor Warren Buffett explained recently, but health care.
In fact, taxes have been steadily going down, especially for the very wealthy and global corporations. "As a percent of GDP," Buffett told shareholders of his investment firm, the corporate tax haul "has gone down." But "medical costs, which are borne to a great extent by business," have increased.
In 1960, corporate taxes in the U.S. were about 4 percent of the economy. Today, they're less than half that. As taxes have fallen, meanwhile, the share of GDP spent on health care has gone from 5 percent of the economy in the 1960s to 17 percent today.
These costs are the real "tax" on businesses. As any small business owner can tell you, health care costs are one of the biggest expenses in maintaining a healthy and productive work force.
Yet the GOP bill will weaken health care coverage and regulation, which will increase costs and hurt U.S. companies.
U.S. employers, remember, must compete with countries that have superior universal health insurance for their citizens and significantly lower costs. While health care eats up 17 percent of the U.S. economy, it's around just 11 percent in Germany, 10 percent in Japan, 9 percent in Britain, and 5.5 percent in China.
No wonder Buffett concluded that "medical costs are the tapeworm of American economic competitiveness."
Buffett observed that the House health care bill would give him an immediate $680,000 annual tax cut, a break he doesn't really need, while only allowing that tapeworm to bore deeper.
For all its limitations, the Affordable Care Act has expanded coverage and the quality of life for millions of Americans. It's also put in place important provisions to contain exploding health care expenses, slowing the rise of costs.
The GOP plan to reduce coverage and deregulate health care will take us in the wrong direction. That's a pretty poor bargain for yet another tax cut for the richest Americans.
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Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
This column was distributed by OtherWords.
Chuck Collins
Chuck Collins is co-founder of CARP and author of Burned by Billionaires: How Concentrated Wealth and Power are Ruining Our Lives and Planet.
Members of the House GOP were in a hurry on May 4 to pass their bill to gut Obamacare. They rushed it through before anyone even had a chance to check its cost or calculate its impact on people's access to insurance.
Their urgency, however, had little to do with health care. The real reason for the rush? To set the table for massive tax cuts.
Indeed, the House health plan would give a $1 trillion boon to wealthy households and pave the way for still bigger corporate tax cuts to come, as part of the so-called "tax reform" they're pushing.
Meanwhile, dismantling the Affordable Care Act will cause up to 24 million people to lose their health coverage, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. (Though even that estimate is based on the less extreme version of the bill that failed to pass in April. The new plan may be even worse.)
Why would a GOP politician support an unpopular bill that fewer than 20 percent of voters think is a good idea? Why risk angry constituents showing up at town hall meetings?
Put simply, to please their wealthy donors and Wall Street corporations. For complex legislative reasons, repealing Obamacare's taxes on the rich first will make it easier for them to slash corporate taxes next.
As the "tax reform" debate begins, prepare for sermons about how cutting taxes for rich and global corporations will be great for the economy. Slashing the corporate tax rate, we'll be told, will boost U.S. competitiveness.
But if Congress were really concerned about the economy, policy wouldn't be driven by tax cuts. The real parasite eating the insides of the U.S. economy isn't taxes, billionaire investor Warren Buffett explained recently, but health care.
In fact, taxes have been steadily going down, especially for the very wealthy and global corporations. "As a percent of GDP," Buffett told shareholders of his investment firm, the corporate tax haul "has gone down." But "medical costs, which are borne to a great extent by business," have increased.
In 1960, corporate taxes in the U.S. were about 4 percent of the economy. Today, they're less than half that. As taxes have fallen, meanwhile, the share of GDP spent on health care has gone from 5 percent of the economy in the 1960s to 17 percent today.
These costs are the real "tax" on businesses. As any small business owner can tell you, health care costs are one of the biggest expenses in maintaining a healthy and productive work force.
Yet the GOP bill will weaken health care coverage and regulation, which will increase costs and hurt U.S. companies.
U.S. employers, remember, must compete with countries that have superior universal health insurance for their citizens and significantly lower costs. While health care eats up 17 percent of the U.S. economy, it's around just 11 percent in Germany, 10 percent in Japan, 9 percent in Britain, and 5.5 percent in China.
No wonder Buffett concluded that "medical costs are the tapeworm of American economic competitiveness."
Buffett observed that the House health care bill would give him an immediate $680,000 annual tax cut, a break he doesn't really need, while only allowing that tapeworm to bore deeper.
For all its limitations, the Affordable Care Act has expanded coverage and the quality of life for millions of Americans. It's also put in place important provisions to contain exploding health care expenses, slowing the rise of costs.
The GOP plan to reduce coverage and deregulate health care will take us in the wrong direction. That's a pretty poor bargain for yet another tax cut for the richest Americans.
Chuck Collins
Chuck Collins is co-founder of CARP and author of Burned by Billionaires: How Concentrated Wealth and Power are Ruining Our Lives and Planet.
Members of the House GOP were in a hurry on May 4 to pass their bill to gut Obamacare. They rushed it through before anyone even had a chance to check its cost or calculate its impact on people's access to insurance.
Their urgency, however, had little to do with health care. The real reason for the rush? To set the table for massive tax cuts.
Indeed, the House health plan would give a $1 trillion boon to wealthy households and pave the way for still bigger corporate tax cuts to come, as part of the so-called "tax reform" they're pushing.
Meanwhile, dismantling the Affordable Care Act will cause up to 24 million people to lose their health coverage, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. (Though even that estimate is based on the less extreme version of the bill that failed to pass in April. The new plan may be even worse.)
Why would a GOP politician support an unpopular bill that fewer than 20 percent of voters think is a good idea? Why risk angry constituents showing up at town hall meetings?
Put simply, to please their wealthy donors and Wall Street corporations. For complex legislative reasons, repealing Obamacare's taxes on the rich first will make it easier for them to slash corporate taxes next.
As the "tax reform" debate begins, prepare for sermons about how cutting taxes for rich and global corporations will be great for the economy. Slashing the corporate tax rate, we'll be told, will boost U.S. competitiveness.
But if Congress were really concerned about the economy, policy wouldn't be driven by tax cuts. The real parasite eating the insides of the U.S. economy isn't taxes, billionaire investor Warren Buffett explained recently, but health care.
In fact, taxes have been steadily going down, especially for the very wealthy and global corporations. "As a percent of GDP," Buffett told shareholders of his investment firm, the corporate tax haul "has gone down." But "medical costs, which are borne to a great extent by business," have increased.
In 1960, corporate taxes in the U.S. were about 4 percent of the economy. Today, they're less than half that. As taxes have fallen, meanwhile, the share of GDP spent on health care has gone from 5 percent of the economy in the 1960s to 17 percent today.
These costs are the real "tax" on businesses. As any small business owner can tell you, health care costs are one of the biggest expenses in maintaining a healthy and productive work force.
Yet the GOP bill will weaken health care coverage and regulation, which will increase costs and hurt U.S. companies.
U.S. employers, remember, must compete with countries that have superior universal health insurance for their citizens and significantly lower costs. While health care eats up 17 percent of the U.S. economy, it's around just 11 percent in Germany, 10 percent in Japan, 9 percent in Britain, and 5.5 percent in China.
No wonder Buffett concluded that "medical costs are the tapeworm of American economic competitiveness."
Buffett observed that the House health care bill would give him an immediate $680,000 annual tax cut, a break he doesn't really need, while only allowing that tapeworm to bore deeper.
For all its limitations, the Affordable Care Act has expanded coverage and the quality of life for millions of Americans. It's also put in place important provisions to contain exploding health care expenses, slowing the rise of costs.
The GOP plan to reduce coverage and deregulate health care will take us in the wrong direction. That's a pretty poor bargain for yet another tax cut for the richest Americans.
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