I don't mind young and healthy people refusing to buy health insurance.
I do mind that all the rest of us pay for their care with higher premiums and deductibles when they say, are injured in a car accident, or heaven forbid, get cancer. I'm waiting for Republicans to answer to this; I'm waiting, still waiting, still . . . you get the picture.
9
So the truth reveals itself. It has always been about helping the wealthy and destroying President Obama's legacy. Eliminating the individual mandate will increase insurance prices as the market share of young, healthy people declines. Any purported tax cuts for families will be offset by increased insurance costs (or as they are often disguised - a failure to raise salaries). So for those of you keeping score at home, the rich are getting richer, and you are getting nothing.
3
We have to get these guys out of office. Unfortunately, the senate elections in 2018 look like an uphill battle.
3
No ACA mandate = fewer healthy enrollees
Fewer healthy enrollees = higher risks in the pool of enrollees
Higher risks in the pool of enrollees = higher rates for coverage
Higher rates for coverage = fewer enrollees, sick or well
Fewer enrollees, sick or well = More uncovered illness
More uncovered illness = more preventable deaths
Thus, no ACA mandate = more preventable deaths, all for the benefit of the rich and for corporations.
We pay the already rich with money from the death of our most vulnerable citizens. Nice job, Mr. Ryan. Nice job, Mr. McConnell.
9
Just one more reason to vote Democrat in 2018. Republicans claim to be pro life - they are lying again. Their entire agenda has been (and will continue to be) pro big business, pro big money. This past election the women have stepped up. The work has begun let us continue. Call your Congressional representative’s office. Jam the WH switchboard. Write in every editorial forum that is open to comment - make your voice heard.
6
Meanwhile, over in the financial press, CNBC reports:
Gary Cohn looks for assurances from CEOs on tax plan, gets crickets
- https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/15/gary-cohn-looks-for-assurances-from-ceos...
- "Appearing Tuesday at The Wall Street Journal's CEO Council conference in Washington, chief Trump administration economic advisor Gary Cohn watched with dismay when attendees were asked whether the reform bill would cause them to spend more on growth. Only a few responded. 'Why aren't the other hands up?' Cohn asked, according to multiple press accounts."
But wait, there's more. It gets even worse.
"A Bank of America Merrill Lynch corporate risk management survey over the summer found that 65 percent of companies would first use their savings to pay down the $6 trillion corporate debt tab for U.S. companies."
So the Republican tax plan will increase the public national debt by $1.5 trillion, in order to reduce private corporate debt.
- Privatize the profits.
- Socialize the losses.
11
The irony is that the Individual Mandate was a Republican idea. The GOP has gone from the party of individual responsibility to that of every man for himself (as long as he’s straight and Caucasian).
3
After the vote is over find out how your Representatives voted on this Bill. If they vote yes for this catastrophe, then vote them out next election. That's called draining the swamp!
2
is this really a surprise?
and whoa nellie, is it *really* a surprise that "republicans *might* target entitlement programs"? come on, people, that "might" is disingenuous at best.
just like the term "entitlement programs" is a complete misnomer in most cases. don't know about you, but *I* have been paying in a friggin fortune over my lifetime to social security and medicare.
and in about 10 to 15 years when I *ought* to have been able to count on both of those programs? most likely, if the repugnant current stable of "republicans" have their way? those programs will be gone, baby gone, and I will be SOL (yeah, that stands for s__t outta luck).
so thanks so much and PLEASE call, e mail, protest this "tax" plan.
it's *really* a wealth redistribution plan--to the top, once again.
6
You are indeed entitled to the payout. The system is tax-funded on a "pay as you go" basis, so there is no pension fund. As with the word "liberal", these pernicious manglers of language turned a respectable word into an epithet.
Apparently they can't help themselves...they make a mess and then keep stepping in it...
2
Healthcare is a right not a luxury. It costs money to insure people and all three hundred and forty million of us need to have skin in the game. Those too poor pay a little less - those too rich pay a little more and we all benefit in the end because we will be healthier and more productive as a country.
5
Easy to write, but the negotiation of what, exactly, is universally covered is extraordinarily difficult and fraught with issues people will battle morally over.
Tax policy and health care should not have been mixed in ACA and should not be mixed in a (questionable) tax plan.
A nation $20 T in debt cannot afford to go into additional debt! The interest on that debt is the biggest brake on the economy!
1
So corporations get a 20% deduction and this is in place forever??? How can they do that? We will never lower our debt if this type of thinking continues.
Unless you are independently wealthy, everyone should have health insurance. Of course young people think they are healthy and won't need it until they get married. But, I know lots of young people who have gotten cancer or some other terrible disease or got into an accident. Most kids or their parent carry the minimum of liability so guess who is going to pay the bills. It makes sense that the more people who have insurance the cheaper the insurance costs will be for everyone! But in truth this shouldn't be discussed in the tax overhaul. Also, people with cancer or other major illness pay large co-pays that could, and have, bankrupt them and the GOP wants to take away that deduction along with every other personal deduction? It is the corporations that are complaining about filing their taxes not individuals. And the GOP is only making very small differences in the individual tax codes. The businesses and corporations and the wealthy sure are getting a bonanza!
4
We should demand an end to the Office of The Physician where lawmakers receive virtually free, on-site medical care and assorted medical services from top-of-the-line specialists, including physical therapy. And free hair salons/barber shop. That gym. Get real.
How aristocratic.
Mitch McConnell pulls in $193,400.00 annually plus millions in perks, is eligible for a huge pension, and his wife assumed a cabinet position in Trump's administration. All in the family.
Both get special perks, cars leased or rented at our expense, and taxpayer-funded perks too numerous to mention in a tiny post such as this.
3
the Repubs must be chortling over this twofer: another arrow in the ACA, and denying insurance subsidies to millions which now counts as a savings, so they can pass their tax cut bill for the wealthy and corporations.
Having become quite comfortable with their lack of empathy, how soon before they do something about those deficit-blowing entitlements, Social Security and Medicare?
Folks, we have to get off our collective butts and hand them massive electoral losses in 2018 . Show them that Virginia was just the beginning.
5
As if the tax bill isn't bad enough!!! Now, they are determined to make sure millions of Americans do not have access to health insurance. I though it was bad enough when I read what happens in 10 years. The "decade" rule sets in and sequestration sets in automatically. This is why our "Individual" tax cuts (if you see any) end in 10 years. However, the corporate tax cut is permanent. Both the tax bills are completely atrocious. Quit trying to drop the corporate tax rate so much. Quit trying to squeeze in every benefit for the wealthy you can manage to. Start over and work on something that is actually possible without doing so much damage
2
Looks like a win is a win for this party, whatever the cost?
2
Whoever is voting for republicans is causing this. From the Virginia vote it seems like rural people mostly.
3
How to get more money for people who already have too much money?
Easy !!
Simply throw more Americans off of healthcare!!
We need to push for an investigation of Congress for corruption.
This is the solution that we need.
They only work for the rich.
4
The Congress has exempted itself from corruption charges. These people don't include themselves in the laws they write for others.
2
Who exactly will do the investigation? Trump, the crime boss?
1
Maybe the Republicans want us all of "crowdsource " our medical bills, just like in the aftermath of the Las Vegas shootings! LOL.
Trump and the Republicans were handed a growing economy. They will now run it to the ground as the always do, and a Democrat will be elected to clean up the mess as always!
When will people ever learn.
5
So, they get rid of the mandate to save money but keep the net Investment Income Tax on that was supposed to be used to reduce the cost to those that could not afford insurance.
In other words the Net Investment Income tax people pay is now going to go to corporations. Most people in the tri state area will pay more in income tax as they lose the state and local income and property tax deductions.
On top of all this increase the estate tax exemptions to 10 million per person.
There will be another revolution in this country if all the wealth ends up in too few hands.
2
The GOP tax plan as wrecking ball continues to swing away, aiming at ending various tax incentives without providing alternatives. Reduce or eliminate deductions for mortgage interest and state and local taxes without a plan for making housing affordable and aiding states already struck by declining Federal aid. Tax wealthy colleges on 1.4% of their endowment investment gains while letting their outside investment managers pay only 4% (instead of nearly 8%) on gains (capital gains treatment of 20% carry) from investing those endowment funds. End tax-free private activity bonds without offering any funding plan for infrastructure improvements promised in last year’s campaign. And now, striking down the individual tax mandate for nonparticipants in health insurance without offering a viable alternative to keep health insurance affordable. Far from being “tax reform”, this is an act of war on other fronts that targets various states, the uninsured and colleges.
2
Surely the pendulum must be out near the end of its swing as to the metaphor about the exchange of liberal and conservative ideologies. Republicans grant everything to the supply side as opposed to demand side of ruling this roost. I've heard it repeated from various republicans how their plans will result in it trickling down; deaf to that the charade has been debunked for its passing over the fact that their promises don't decide that, payroll departments and who tells them how to slice and dice do. Its actually dishonest to advertise that benefit like it was a Christmas present their schemes have the power to deliver. How does hiring or even the hope of sharing the rewards of success happen w/o a corresponding demand preceding it? The tax breaks should be weighted at where they'll actually do the most good ... and its a logical fact by now -- in the hands of people struggling with their budgets and will spend into the economy and ... that's how you grow it most efficiently. Supply side does nothing but create sideways market place transfers out of competitors' market share. It stands to reason.
1
I wonder how many of these Senate Republicans have photos and portraits of their billionaire masters/donors over their fireplace mantles? It's patently obvious to me that the welfare of their corporate benefactors is paramount to their holding office.
The average American is of no use to them except during re-elections.
4
Basically, the gloves have come off and Republican politicians see no shame in behaving in a manner similar to how reactionaries legislate and lobby on behalf of the wealthy in socially stratified developing countries like Brazil, the Philippines, and Pakistan.
What a stunning fall for the United States of America to be facing a situation a la Brazil prior to a right-wing coup d'etat there in 1964. Could you ever imagine a "normal" developed country like Canada, Germany, Japan, or Australia seeing its political process hijacked by such a group of people like the Koch brothers and Grover Norquist?
7
I am just not capable of understanding the wanton cruelty of Congressional Republicans. Sorry, but I do not understand.
14
It's probably backlash for making them beg for money for hours every day from people who pay themselves so much more than they are paid by their employer, the government.
You eliminate the mandate many young people will drop out of buying insurance. Rates will natually go up, and those young people without insurance will now show up at ER's for health care. Does this really make sense? Oh I forgot those that are going to vote for this have Gold Star medical insurance.
12
Will those young uninsured people sign a waiver agreeing to pay up front for any unexpected emergency room expenses, so the insured don't end up footing the bill for the them? Can they agree to set their own broken bones at home?
1
You're ridiculous. You just ignore that the prices are sky high and a lot of us young people just can't afford it.
Oh, yes. Take away middle class tax deductions and rape the middle class so Trump can avoid the AMT and the estate tax. Sure, we’re on board with that. Absolutely not. However, there’s a bridge in NYC we can sell to Trump!
And, just as I’m about to go into Medicare, plan cuts for the program. Why not? Trump can afford any health care he wants (does anyone know if he signed up for Medicare?) and Congress has the best health plan in the country. They can vote for this because they don’t need Medicare and because their big R donors will probably take care of them in retirement.
Rape is rape, whether it is slow or fast. The R Congress is looking for speed. Do it to us fast before we fully understand what has happened.
10
Vile and despicable are just two of the words I have for the current and possibly the last Republican Congress we might ever see. They can never call themselves the Party of Lincoln ever again. Trump has seen to that and they have turned into radical right wing extremists, who can embrace our worst enemies if it means they get to hold power. Now, they want to take healthcare away from those who need to the most and cannot afford it and they know it will tank our economy. They are doing all of this just to pay back a few donors. These so called Senators are nothing but monsters . . .
7
Vlad Putin set them all up to shatter the USA just like the USA shattered the USSR.
1
This is good news for me. I make 30k per year and I'm expected to pay 300 a month for a plan with a 6k deductible. When asked where that money should come from Obama said it's an iPhone and service. Ok, I paid 60 for my iPhone, it has a crack in the top. I share a family plan with my brother that costs me 120 per year. I can pay 300 a month and a 6k deductible with that? Good riddance to this stupid law. This is "1984", where the right is left and left is right.
2
So with the GOP plan you'll have no insurance at all and no care. Great bargain. Try making cell phone calls without your phone, then you'll have an idea how this will all play out.
1
Do you have car insurance? Homeowner's? Maybe life? The point of insurance is to have it when you need it and pray you never need it. In order to have it, many people have to pay into the system.
Do you hope to collect Social Security and count on Medicare one day? What if the people who would pay for you to enjoy those said no?
I sense you are young (sharing a family plan with your brother). But there are plenty of young people who need medical attention for a host of reasons.
For the record, there's plenty I could do with my money for myself if I didn't have the obligations (and privileges) of insurance and taxes. -- thegamesmenplay.com
I get no care anyways, I pay for all of that out of pocket. Then I pay so that the insurance companies can get the profits they want. This is not how the Canadians deal with it. You're leaving out that I'm required to pay this so that the companies can get the profits they want. How do you expect to get a fair system when you stubbornly ignore the major problems with it because you think it's better than nothing?
2
Apparently, the Republican long-term strategy now depends on the following:
1. Give the top .1 or .01% and large corporations more money they can not spend, so will contribute to PACs and candidates in much larger quantities.
2. Hope those who lose health insurance die or become incapacitated so quickly they do not vote. Use voter suppression tactics on the rest.
3. Lie about how wonderful everything is or will be.
4. Modify the education system to focus on obedience to top-down commands, and rote learning, ignoring problem solving and fact based thinking.
5. Concentrate all media in the hands of Murdoch and friends to control what information is available. (ex: CNN sale to Murdoch proposal.)
6. Lie about how "they" are destroying everything, including Christmas.
7. Pick issues that are absolutely unimportant to them (because they will still have full control of their bodies, for example) and use them to create emotional anger.
8. Asset-strip the country for the benefit of the very wealthy, throwing a few crumbs to sycophants.
9. Lie about how wonderful everything is or will be.
12
Considering the magnitude and power of insurance companies in America, it is amazing how few Americans understand how it works. If you are not going to adopt universal health care like the rest of the world you should realize that the more people that sign up for insurance, the lower the premiums will cost. Looking on from Canada i still can't understand how you people don't want to protect yourselves.
13
That's true, but it seems like the people making that argument just ignore that a lot of people can't afford it. You can't possibly expect people to react positively to that. I make 30k per year, at 300 a month for a huge deductible I can't afford it. I can't afford the penalty either.
Many of us do understand how it works and we do want to protect ourselves. But we have a huge, easily manipulated underclass that has abdicated their responsibility to think for themselves and who don't learn from the effects of repeatedly vote for the worst politicians our skewed system throws up.
4
With the gop tax plan taxes our worst fears are being realized. Taxes on the middle class are going to skyrocket, our medical premiums, will shoot up and our medicare and medicaid and social security benefits will get slashed. 30 million poor people are going to loose their health insurance eventually. The deficit is going to hit 25 trillion very soon. The only winners are trump and the ultrawealthy, corporations and gop donors. We will be paying 300 billion in interest payments every year. When interest rates go up it will be much more. And the red states and rural areas will be hit the hardest, but they voted for trump and the gop and those are the consequences-unfortunately for all of us.
6
Once again we are modifying the tax plan because it is insufficiently cruel enough for poor people. The goal is always to cut essential health care to pay for tax cut for the uber wealthy.
9
It's so nice that they have this big middle class tax cut...which is not a cut for many people, and expires in 7 years anyway while the corporate tax cuts are permanent. They are playing a great game of distracting people by having short term tax cuts to cover the giant tax cuts for corporations. Eliminating the mandate is just the icing on the cake. I'm feeling cynical--if someone drops health insurance because they "are healthy" and "don't need it," can we require hospitals to check their credit before treating them when they show up at the emergency room, so the rest of us don't end up paying for it?
5
From a young person. Can we check what the profits are and what the CEOs of the insurance companies are making? You know, so that I can make sure I'm not paying for their yacht by paying 300 a month for a 6k deductible on a 30k a year salary? I bet you have more money than me, why don't we make you pay more so that I can get something you don't have?
Party over country.
Plain and simple. Easy to see, but hard to understand.
This is what happens when people do not vote.
This country needs record turnout in 2018 & 2020 and many of these issues will work themselves out by electing representatives that best reflect the will of the people.
We now know who the GOP works for.
7
There is no other political party on Earth that stands on a platform of destruction of the national government.
2
I was wondering how repealing the individual mandate would save that much money. I didn't realize the money saved would be money that would be otherwise "wasted" on medical care. Compassionately conservative.
4
The individual mandate raises the money needed to compensate emergency rooms when these people who believe nothing bad can happen to them are dumped on their doorsteps from ambulances.
It’s the people of the United States that have the problem.We have a corrupt
President,and a corrupt congress.Democracy will die if you let them
have their tax cuts ,and strip the health care Obama tried to give us.It only needs bi-partisan agreements to fix ,instead because Obama had the concept
The old white men must erase it ,they were too ignorant to come up with the concept.Stand in the way of this latest atrocity.Tell them we want their health care cancelled now,we won’t pay for it.
7
Adding an unrelated poison pill to ensure it gets voted down and blame someone else for their failures. What is it with Republican "governance"?
3
In case you had any doubts that the Republican party did not care about working men and women and are all about the wealthy and corporate donors, here is your reminder.
8
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. This has never been about healthcare. It has been about redistribution of money from one group to another so liberals can amass electoral power. That's it. The real issue is getting our population healthier so they don't need doctors as much. Yes, yes there will always be times when doctor visits and hospital visits are unavoidable. But...and here's where 90% of people scoff...but stay with me a sec...a large number of us, and collectively the 'greater good'...could make out incredibly better if we just took charge of our own health. Again, for the naysayers, this WILL NOT work for those with terrible chronic illnesses, and other unfortunate health issues. And NO it will not work if some meteor falls from the sky and maims a person - but we cannot live our lives in fear! Eat an orange instead of potato chips. Grab a glass of water instead of soda. Walk to the store instead of driving. Just little steps here and there can make a big difference!! Obesity is the foe we are fighting in this country; or should be, on the whole. It robs people of their health. Advertising makes unhealthy foods seem appealing. Yes there will always be need for healthcare - but break the dependency on doctors. Let's defeat obesity now!! Excuses don't work; action does! I just read where a 91 year old active woman said she eats very little and is active and happy - we should all try it - better than doctor visits and pills! :)
2
Correction: This has nothing to do with"liberals amassing power" but rather greedy, racist, corporate owned Republican Congressmen.
3
And if Trump has his way, this wonderful tax plan will be delivered to your door by Christmas. Happy Holidays everyone. Sorry, Merry Christmas everyone.
1
There is no limit to what this Republican Congress is willing to do to reward their uber rich donors, and no cost or degradation they are not willing to impose on the vast majority of people they were elected to govern. This is what the early stages of an oligarchy looks like.
7
Why don't we also talk about the inordinate costs for the care in the first place? My doctor (at MGH) told me not to get caught paying out of pocket, that everything, just everything, is marked up. MGH is non-profit but how many of their suppliers are? How many of our nation's care facilities are non-profit? Why is big pharm uncontrollable?
And ask us to pay fair prices in the first place. I taught part time at one college and the cost for me, out of pocket, one person, would have been $600 a month to get their insurance, for which I was "qualified" to pay. The 1k annual penalty would be a more realistic, considering income and considering a history of good health. Stop asking people who make less to also make more difficult choices from fewer viable options.
2
Wasn't it the Republicans who gave dire warnings to the American public that the ACA would usher in an era of "death panels"? They tried to scare Americans away from the idea of government subsidized insurance with a false threat.
Today, the Republicans are not threatening anyone. They are simply acting in the best interests of the wealthy. Their actions will lead to the deaths of Americans, through lack of healthcare and environmental protection.
They do not say that tax cuts for the majority of Americans, 73 million families, are minimal and will evaporate by 2026. Nor do they note that the remaining 43 million wealthy families will receive huge tax savings, which will double by 2016.
Reducing tax dollars, which are needed to run the United States, will lead to deficit spending. These funds are needed to support Social Security, Medicare, infrastructure repair, public education and the military.
Republicans hate deficit spending. Their tax plan will cause deficit spending.
Next they will call for abolition of funds for vital services, to avoid deficits they themselves caused.
But Congresspeople, the President, the Cabinet will remain unscathed by this tax plan, as they are among its wealthy beneficiaries.
5
Ending the mandate will destabilize markets and threaten the health care of millions. Republicans just can't stand it that poor people have health insurance. Imagine if people were allowed to forgo auto insurance until they got into a wreck and then just stick us all with the bill.
7
I absolutely don't understand why a bunch of billionaires want to get more money by raising taxes on the rest of us. If they have the luck and skill and government support to get filthy rich as they have in previous decade, why to do they want to tax working people at a higher rate and themselves at a lower rate? How many personal jets, fancy homes, cars, and watches can one possibly use?
The Republican party wants to take away a working insurance program for the middle class and the poor so they can buy more jets, cars, houses, etc.? Why? How much is enough? Seems to me the Kochs, Mercers, and Trumps don't need another thing, but the middle class and poor are struggling to pay the rent and send their kids to college. Are they trying to kill off those who can't keep up financially? It is hard to understand the greed of these robber barons.
16
Removing the mandate also removes the requirement to cover pre-existing conditions. While the mandate is not popular, the pre-existing condition requirement is very popular. You can't have one without the other and the NYT should be reporting this.
12
The Republican thieves in Congress are rewarding themselves a golden parachute for when they are voted out of office, as surely they recognize the end for them and their party is coming soon.
5
The health care solution is as simple as it is obvious. Not so easy to do. But I think it points out the central flaw in the system that is preventing the right solution from coming to be.
Pass a law that all members of Congress have to have the same level of medical care as the person who has the least care in their state.
Before lunch the next day we will have universal healthcare.
9
Wow. Here we go again. The Senate Republicans just can't help themselves. They continue to tilt at the windmill they call Obamacare.
The gang that can't shoot straight is shooting themselves in the foot, yet again. Repealing the individual mandate is a poison pill that will destroy the chances of passing their tax cut bill.
It's almost like they want to fail. The Democrats don't even need to act as the opposition party. They can just sit back and watch, with a bag of popcorn.
6
It's insurance. Insurance works with the law of averages, everyone participates to defray the costs of utilization. We have long accepted this principle.
The GOP is not pushing to eliminate the mandate on automotive insurance or home owners insurance for mortgage holders. So why is there this pressing need to eliminate the health insurance mandate?
Three answers.
1. Anti Obama, anti Democrat, racist reaction.
2. The desire to cripple health carriers and the health insurance industry in order to defund coverage for the neediest among us.
3. To name the victims of poverty as lazy and undeserving in order that the GOP can find "reasons" to cut public programs.
All in the name of Making America Great Again.
7
The Republicans are going to kill off the middle class completely. This current crop of Radicals is insane.
Have you noticed?
In the near future, you'll be lucky if you can drive to work or go out for a meal without encountering so many financially desperate people that you won't be able to feel safe in areas you used to visit routinely.
Your formerly safe neighborhood?
Ha.
This is what happens to societies.
Let's not be naive.
We see it all over the world.
It will happen here and with all the guns out there it will be especially bad.
Now, they are coming after Medicare and Social Security.
Imagine how many people will be desperate after they get done.
Read. Then stop them.
Call your representative.
(202) 225-3121
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/11/15/us/politics/republicans-entitlemen...
5
I've been to mexico city. If you have a certain level of wealth, you need to be careful where you go, and hiring private security is a good idea. You don't see too many fancy cars, but when you do, they are often up-armored...I visited a BMW dealer that had mostly all 'armored versions"...you can tell by the windows. The houses these cars park at have high walls with razor wire. The disparity of wealth leads to gangs, for whom kidnapping is a good business. Our exploding homeless crisis is only the camel's nose in the tent.
4
If Republicans have their way, states like Texas will race to the bottom, slashing already meager services using block grants. Seven in ten nursing home patients in Texas are on Medicaid. The AARP gives the state an "F" for care and coverage. Even with a projected $12 billion in the rainy day fund, Gov. Abbott and the hard right Texas Senate refused to increase the reimbursement rate. As is, severely disabled poor kids in the Early Childhood Intervention program had $350 million in cuts to the therapy services. Kids are missing out on acute care that will impact them for the rest of their lives. If states don't give a darn about kids one to three year old, whats to think they will use the money any more wisely. All they care about is helping the 1%!
7
One way to find money for more tax cuts would be to cancel all Congressional health coverage. These taxpayer-funded platinum plans have failed at treating the mental illness that is rampant in our Congress.
8
Trump and the gop want to throw 13 million americans, poor people with no health insurance, under the bus to give trump, gop donors, the ultrawealthy and the corporations another massive tax cut!
7
The problem with the GOP is they fear their donors more than their constituents. Their rich donors couldn't care less about average Americans as long as they get the tax cuts needed to establish a permanent oligarchy (as if one isn't already in place). I'd tell everyone to call their senators, but unless you're ready to cut a million dollar check, your complaints will fall of deaf ears.
4
The cruelty and Anti-Christian values being pushed by this Republican Oligarch Congress just before the time we celebrate Jesus' birth in a manger is beneath contempt.
No doubt the Devil is setting up an array of special rooms for them such as Jesus spoke of in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. All for the benefit of corrupt corporations & CEO's so rich they can never hope to spend all they have.
3
Highway robbery, in plain sight, visible to all and pushing ahead. What else could we have hoped for from an Administration run by the top 1%?
6
Highway robbery? How?
in 2006 my company’s sponsored family health insurance plan was $8,500
after Obamacare in 2017 my company’s family health insurance plan is $22,600. Who made me enslaved?
What's about the high property tax in NYC? Who made me enslaved?
Why are people mixing “deny poor and working class”? the working class are receiving Health Insurance through their employer! And after age 65 every American is getting Medicare.
Another important point to rebuff the lie from the Democrats. If someone is born sick for example a Down Syndrome or with heart problems that Social Security Disability Insurance with Medicaid is always available for those born sick children!
Why do we need all this undocumented employees? The answer is: because to many people don’t went to go out and work, if they do go out and work they will lose their Free Health Insurance, Free Food Stamps, Free Section 8 or public housing.
Ugh - what good is it to tout a Tax reform bill that is going to expire in 10 years for individuals, but, last forever for greedy corporations? Sadly, someone should break the news to the Trump voters that they won't see the tax break this year, so they shouldn't rush to H&R Block the minute they get their W2.
I just don't understand why people are drinking this Trump/Republican Cool Aid.
4
A scene in Congress:
Congressman #1- I hate the middle class, they are always wining about clean drinking water and better schools and the bridge that is crumbling. I have a great idea, let's raise taxes on them so David Koch can have more money. I love when he invites me over for one of those $100,000 bottles of wine.
Congress man #2 - I hate the middle class too, always wining that we need to listen to them, blah, blah, let's do one better, let's raise their taxes and take away health care. Its like an awesome kill the middle class two for one.
3
Evidently the GOP only allows those to run and get elected that will allow them to brutalize those who are not elected, that is all of the rest of us. Often I think things can't get worse, but the GOP always finds a way to prove me wrong.
3
Forever manipulative and self serving. Where do they get the idea cuts for corporations can be permanent? It would seem w this administration the constitution is not permeant.
2
Day after day, I have to continually ask the question of so many Americans, WHY do you vote for the Republican Party?? This is a group of political hacks and opportunists that stand for absolutely nothing, other than doing whatever is necessary to line their own pockets and those of their wealthy benefactors. The pre-occupation with cutting healthcare is just ONE of many programs. They do not care about the consequences. Other than constantly whining that "government and taxes are evil" they have no policies. I always chuckle at the fact that if government is so evil, why is there never a shortage of Republicans who wish to run for office, ironically, for an institution they allegedly so despise? Perhaps it has something to do with the "perks", that gold plated "government" pension and "government" healthcare plan, maybe?
It has now been a year and for the first time in decades, Republicans control all THREE executive branches and so far, what do we see? Aside from a President who is clearly "off the rails", constant infighting, scandals and a group of individuals that have clearly demonstrated they couldn't govern their way out of a "wet paper bag"!
5
What a bunch of lackeys. It is breathtaking to watch how they will bend to accommodate there rich donors at the expense of Americans and their health care. Another failed bill in the making and the slow death of the GOP- all happening in real time. This is historic in its hypocrisy.
2
This idea is insidious and duplicitous. If the middle class want their tax cuts, they can give back their health insurance? Great job, republicans. We are not as stupid as you would like to believe we are.
3
Individuals who do not carry insurance and are treated in an emergency room are billed for those services. However, when they do not have the funds to pay off that bill, we all pay for it. We pay for it in our local taxes in the form of a public hospital system. We pay for it through various social programs. We pay for it in indigent care. The individual mandate is about personal responsibility, with a safety net. If it is not working properly, fix it.
1
Health care for the poor OR deep permanent tax cuts for the wealthy. Why is that the choice? We as a nation can afford a basic level of health care for all and the wealthy will still be wealthy. Why does one person have to choose between a visit to a doctor or rent, so that another can choose between a Rolex and a Bentley?
3
Stopping the ACA mandate that all must have health insurance has zero to do with tax reform!
This "hail Mary" attempt to once again destroy government support of health insurance markets, by shrinking Medicare, and ensuring that cash flow to insurance companies is reduced, guarantees that insurance premiums will be unaffordable to the 73 million families who earn <$25K to $86K annually.
Private insurers cannot pay for care elder care without healthy clients and Medicare assistance. Premiums wll skyrocket and only the deserving rich will be able to afford them.
On the tax reform plan itself, by 2026, any reductions in taxes will evaporate for the least paid 73 million families. (see NYT article, dated Nov. 8, "Senate Republicans Will Diverge From House in Sweeping Tax Rewrite", for an excellent explanation and graphics.)
In the meantime, the 43 million families earning between $87K to $3.5 million plus, receive a huge tax break next year, which nearly doubles by 2026!
Yet, tax dollars are necessary to keep government services afloat, like Social Security, Medicare, public education, infrastructure repair, environmental protection and the military.
The Republicans fully understand that drastically cutting taxes for the rich will lead to deficit spending. When that happens, they will call for abolition of all government services.
Who will not feel the pain? Wealthy individuals and corporations, including the President, the Cabinet and the self-serving Congress.
5
The assumption is that the exchanges live or die based on whether there is a mandate. That is not necessarily so. At one extreme, increasing subsidies would allow the exchanges to retain many of those presently insured. Moreover, there hasn't been much effort to sell coverage. Make exchange insurance a good buy, restructure it to appeal to the market and advertise what is being sold and there's good reason to believe that many will conclude that buying makes more sense than going uninsured. The next best thing to a mandate is eliminating the need for it.
The rich always seem to be the ogres. However, even with a graduated income tax,there should be a reasonable limit on the maximum tax any individual should be required to pay for the mutual benefit of us all. We need to remind ourselves that most of us are not amenable to send strangers to college at our expense, for example. Even if a rich person pays the same percentages of his or her income as that of a middle income taxpayer, the rich person pays much much more in absolute dollars. When is enough enough?
AGAIN! This is just another political solution for a systemic problem. So what is so hard to understand about these political "solutions" is that at the end of the day they may serve myopic self interests for the "all for ourselves but nothing for you class" but in ANY culture the power to sustain a system AND EVEN ITS OLIGARCHY depends on having a strong and vibrant society to support it. Because even if you're going to have a society based on a pyramid supplanting a Sphere! you don't turn around and then chip away at its base until it all falls down!
I feel privileged to live in a country where my taxes will increase (as a retiree) to help fund tax reductions for the rich and very rich, and now I get to help pay the medical costs for people who find a mandate for health insurance offensive. Someone has to pay, and better for me to do so than for universal health care or insurance funded by the government. This is the RRH (Reverse Robin Hood) policy adopted by our pitiful congress. I am sad for you, America.
5
Warning! The "tax deform" bill (I think it's the House version) also contains an anti-abortion provision. It declares "personhood" for an embryo. This is the opening maneuver in declaring an embryo and fetus to be a legal person, after which abortion will become the capital crime of first-degree murder. Will the Times please pay close attention?
12
This is just a giant shell game- Offer a portion of the middle class a modest tax rebate in exchange for:
1) increased cost of welfare for the un-insured
2) Increased amount of illness due to people not receiving preventative medicine
2) Increased severity of the illness (suffering) as uninsured people will put off medical care until they can't (also will drive up medical costs - think what a flu shot costs vs treating someone for pneumonia)
3) huge tax reduction for corporations with no requirements that this money gets used to help the middle and lower class and not just to give bigger bonuses.
All to pass a bill using a technicality allowing it to pass with only republican votes. Ironically, the pain will fall disproportionately on the lower and middle class Trumpers
8
call Senator McCain, Senator Murkowski and Senator Collins....tell them to vote no on this tax and repeal obamacare...202) 224-3121
4
Will McCain, Collins and Murkowski again vote no?
2
Windfall tax cuts for the richest of the rich AND slashing healthcare for MILLIONS at the same time?
You really think the Repubs would be ashamed of such naked 'up yours, 99%!' actions? But they're utterly arrogant and, it seems now, utterly evil.
Sorry, I know of no other way to see this. "Evil" seems like the only term left for deliberately causing suffering, harm, disease, and death to millions while serving the needs of their billionaire pay-masters.
9
Remember when the CBO said:
Obamacare will cost $1.0 trillion over 10 years ($100 billion a year) to cover 50 million uninsured. The cost is $300 billion and we still have 40 million uninsured.
Look at this article:
13 million will be uninsured So, only 13 million of the 50 or 40 million actually signed/sign up. Are the 40 million violating the mandate or was the 50 million bogus in the first place?
How many are actually paying the penalty?
The 13 M will save the government $300 B over 10 years, $23,000 per person. Typical coverage costs $4,500 per year, $45,000 over 10 years. If half are in the future, almost all of the premium is being paid for by the government. The uninsured only sign up when their premium cost is about the same or less than their penalty.
The government has never acknowledged what portion of the 20 million under Obamacare already had insurance. If your private policy costs were $10,000 a year (typical for individual coverage after 55) and you were eligible you could switch and save $5,000. Millions did.
The $300 B cost per year for 20 M covered is $15,000 per person. Over half of the cost is administrative cost, not the cost of insurance or care. HSS budget costs to administer Obamacare are not in this number.
The numbers may be a little off but got the picture yet?
3
I am beyond my verbal capacity to express my utter disgust at the cruelty of the GOP: tax graduate students' tuition so their taxes might go up 300% (which basically says: screw education even though it means fewer chemists, economists, doctors — forget about the liberal arts contingent), sneak in repeal of the ACA and a woman's right to choose. The GOP really hates anyone who is not in the 1% and they certainly want to dumb down the population so they can get away with more and more of their horrid plans to recreate the Robber-Baron Age. Their actions demonstrate an increasing hatred for the entire human race and planet. I can only hope they get their just desserts.
15
I’m beginning to think the degradation of our values and hope aren’t just byproducts, they’re actually the point. They’ve gone from disparaging things like education, science, equal rights and labor rights to defunding and eliminating them. The drumbeats of bigotry and so-called Christianity are constant. With gerrymandering, the path to meaningless show elections is increasing. Once you see this pattern, it cannot be unseen.
5
“They also announced that tax cuts for individuals in their plan would expire in 2025, but that deep cuts for corporations would be permanent.”
Having fun “winning” yet, Deplorables?
17
“This is turning a tax bill into a health care bill, "
It was always a bill to get a tax cut for the 1% whether it was called a Healthcare Repeal or Tax Reform. Taking heath care from the non-1% in order to give the 1% (the GOP donors) an unneeded tax cut has always been the ruse.
America , if you let the GOP do this to you then you are complicit. There should be a million person march in DC every day to shake the gates of the WH off their hinges & to pay a visit to the GOP offices with barrels of tar & feathers at the ready.
5
Until campaign finance laws and gerrymandered districts are revised, a historical solution would be pitchforks, rakes, and torches. Just kidding?
5
I blame the democrats in Congress for the mess we are now in with the ACA. They had control of Congress and could have given President Obama the public option he wanted. Instead, they caved in to the special interests, just like Republicans, so here we are.
In 2018, I expect Congress to go to the Democrats. Once they have the power, they should push Trump to support the public option if not single payer. If that doesn't work, I expect them to work with whoever replaces Trump in 2020 to finally end the madness of our broken healthcare system.
5
The Republicans are a pretty severe roadblock when it comes to doing anything for the Country. They only serve themselves abd the 1%.
Neil Gorsuch comes to mind - an idea logue who is a complete corporate shill - an enemy of average Americans.
The best hope that we have now is to pressure our anti-American pro rich Congress.
They believe that no one can stop them, but they need to be stopped.
It’s up to the American people to find a remedy for a thoroughly corrupt Congress.
2
Someone should portray the Republican attempts to block, then repeal Obamacare in the style of the Roadrunner vs Wile E. Coyote.
3
This is unbelievable.
The Republican Congress comes right out and says that they are going to basically borrow nearly $2trillion and give it to the richest 1%, and by the way, cut services to average Americans to help pay for it.
This has been standard practice whenever they have been in power, and apparently, nothing can be done to stop it.
It’s time for an independent investigation of Congress.
This is really wrong.
10
I'm the kind of person that the GOP would think would love this. I'm in my early 30s, in good health, exercise, don't have any chronic conditions, and don't smoke. I'm about to change insurance to a plan provided by my new employer, but if I were in the same position as before, I'd be the target audience to use this new "freedom" to not have health insurance because I'm so low risk. The insurance companies would hate to see me go, too, because I'm basically paying in to cover their costs of insuring higher risk patients, right? I should be happy this "tyrannical" individual mandate is going, right?
Not so fast. Two months ago I sustained a sports injury that resulted in a six hour emergency room visit, 11 stitches, and a busted-up knee that I still am missing feeling in. If I didn't have my mediocre insurance, I'd have lost a considerable amount of my personal savings, and that's with me having been dutiful in saving up for retirement since I started working. A decade of seemingly wasted premium payments were made easily worth it in one instant. It wouldn't have been fair to ask the hospital or society to cover the costs of my misfortune (that'd be me asking for those darned government handouts), yet if I didn't have insurance I also wouldn't have deserved to be left out of luck and permanently disabled due to a freak accident.
Conservatives: we need the individual mandate or a single payer system. You need insurance, too, even if you think you don't.
17
Not to worry.
They will make sure that they still have insurance even as they take it away from other Americans.
1
It's not the Republican Senators or Reps that are the problem. The blame lies with the millions of people who elect (& re-elect) them thinking that what they do is just fine.
11
Dear Congress:
As the months go by, you seem to create tax legislation that only helps the very rich, and then you have the arrogance to assert that it will help the middle class. If you truly wanted to help the middle class, lower the middle class tax rates. Businesses spend their money on dividends and stock buy backs only because there aren’t better investments, such as new plants and equipment because demand is insufficient to justify adding additional capacity (new investment).
So, if you really want to “grow” the economy, focus more of your proposed tax cuts on the middle class instead of the very rich. This will increase demand because these people will spend the money from their tax cuts generating growth in the economy.
Its nonsense that you are telling middle class taxpayers that the effect of the corporate tax cuts will “trickle down” to them because the corporations will have more money available after taxes. These additional profits will go to dividends and stock buy backs as long as you have insufficient demand in the economy.
2
The Supreme Court rescued the Affordable Care Act in 2012 by ruling that the individual mandate constitutes a tax, not a fine. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined Chief Justice John Roberts in the ruling, which the New York Times applauded. Since the individual mandate is a tax, it belongs in the tax bill.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/29/us/supreme-court-lets-health-law-large...
As Pual Krugman has written in the past: "The moral vacuity of Republicans in Congress".
2
I'm disgusted beyond words. The Republican "tax plan" is to eliminate health insurance for millions of average Americans, all to give more tax breaks for the super rich! Its up to us fellow citizens to fight this so-called tax plan tooth and nail! And we must oust the Trump mafia before our country is ravaged beyond repair.
6
Does anyone still believe the nonsense the GOP preaches about being fiscal conservatives?
3
This article and many others on this legislation make it seem a fait accompli.
Is it?
Republicans want to crash the economy and kill Americans for want of being able to go to a doctor.
That is what they will consider a "win."
Call your legislators today. And every day.
2
Doctors take cash
The GOP is a mere shadow of its former glory. They are drunk with power and totally inept. They could not care less for the people of our country, or their needs and wants. If they had a single shred of dignity or concern for the elderly, infirm, working class or poor, they would fashion a tax bill/healthcare mandate repeal that would serve all people and not just the wealthy. The sooner we vote these despicable despots out of office, the sooner our country can return to serving all its citizens and the world. As things stand now, the GOP is a self-serving conduit for the wealthy.
4
As usual, this is another REPUBLICAN BAIT AND SWITCH. They will campaign on one thing and do a flip as soon as feasible and nearly always to the detriment of their glassy eyed, hypnotized and adoring supporters. Perhaps a few more neighbors could tackle their senatorial lawn mowers and reduce the Senate numbers even more for this execrable vote.
1
Forcing Americans to buy a consumer product is something out of Soviet Russia. It's as un-American as it gets, a stale holdover from the tyrannical Obama administration.
1
Do you insure your car? Do you want the driver of a vehicle who may hit you to also be insured? Please think pragmatically rather than ideologically - mandated insurance means everyone chips in so that everyone gets help when they need it.
3
Well, of course. It's just more GOP sleight of hand for a massive wealth transfer from the middle class to the rich. Lookee here, guys! We're giving you a tax cut! (Some of you, no, but too bad - you donor state liberal snowflakes deserve to keep paying more into the federal coffers than you get back, at an even higher rate.) Um, pay no attention over there, where we make some of you pay more for healthcare insurance (enough to eat up the tax break and maybe even more), or have to drop it entirely and take your chances.
Lookee there, guys! 10 years of tax cuts for you individuals! Don't look over there, where corporate cuts are permanent, so if the miraculous 4% US economy growth doesn't happen, not only will we have to rip up Medicare and Medicaid, possibly even Social Security (because the procedural requirement MANDATES the tax cuts "only" add $1.5 trillion to the deficit over 10 years), but after ten years we'll be able to rock those individual rates higher while corporations stay home free.
Lookee here, guys! No more Death Tax! Pay no attention over there, where we remove the ability of you working class shlobs to get a tax break if sending your kids to college, while we ensure the wealthiest of the 1% can pass on ALL of that wealth to their kids, who can already attend pretty much any school they want to when folks with seven figure incomes can make the right donations.
Finally, they set up a fiscal cliff to occur when a Democrat will likely be President. Slick!
3
Republican just can't govern.
More than inept, they are small, greedy and harmful.
From McConnell to the local dog catcher they must all pay for the deeds of the House and Senate at the next ballot box.
4
News flash. America is filled with people who treasure high personal freedom and high personal responsibility. Go GOP!
What repealing the Obamacare Care mandate does is kills Obama Care. It only works if mass amounts of people use it. This is the intention of this "add on" provision. Shame on them!
2
Look at the comments here. 90% of them condemn the Republicans and actually demand more free stuff for themselves, paid for by other taxpayers. Whatever happened to hard work, self reliance and paying your own way? This is what the Democrat party has evolved to today; promises of healthcare, food stamps, subsidized housing and unlimited social services in exchange for votes. Some would call that bribery. It is bribery, and it is also stealing from hard working taxpayers to pay the bribes.
2
@Paul: You certainly make a lot of assumptions about people. May you never have cancer or any other life-threatening disease. May your family never have a disabled child. May you never lose your job. May you never be in a disabling accident. May you never have medical bills that exceed your ability to pay them. May you never find yourself working two minimum-wage jobs with no health benefits. May you never have your IRA wiped out in a stock market crash. May your child be accepted the cheapest university in the country. And above all, may you someday develop compassion for others and the ability to imagine what life is like for others less fortunate that you are.
4
Adding the (unpopular) healthcare repeal into their tax bill? The Republicans are just putting their head in the noose. They can't seem to accomplish anything.
1
This is what we get when we are too lazy to vote.
Anyone smell any coffee yet?
4
These crooks only care about their wealthy donors. I cannot believe normal people vote them into office. They are fleecing us all.
1
“They also have made a calculated gamble to help speed their bill to passage on a party-line vote.”
Warning to Trump and Republicans:
Act in haste. Repent in leisure.
Rather, Repent in Jail.
Hardworking Americans must find a way to prosecute self-interested, self-serving and self-dealing Elected Politicians. They are entrepreneurs working for themselves and serving their customers – party, and special interest donors while harming our economy, national security and people.
Unless the realty of prosecution, jail time, a criminal record and loss of federal pension and benefits and future employment are real they will never primarily work for our interest.
As Trump and his colleague Flynn said – “Lock Them Up”
Yes, let’s Lock Them Up!
We must find a way to hold self-interested Elected Politicians and their staffers, from both parties, personally liable, responsible and accountable for the lies they have told US, their gross mismanagement of our county, our $20.5 T and growing national debt (108% of GDP), and our $100 T in future, unfunded liabilities they forced on US jeopardizing our economic and national security, while benefiting themselves, their staffers, their party and special interest donors.
http://www.usdebtforum.com
2
Awfully bold and daring of the GOP to throw an attempt to gut the health care coverage for millions of Americans into the mix.
I have news for them, not every American is a dumb Trump supporter. If they somehow shove this through, the midterm elections will be devastating for the GOP.
No doubt about it.
4
I am a republican and I am so sick of efforts to repeal Obama care. the best idea was by trump to get a bipartisan effort to fix it. the stupid conservative republicans killed that. they have to understand that most Americans including many republicans want Obama care to stay till some one finds something better.
as usual neither party will work together and they completely forget about the people who elected them.
1
My thought is simple: What horrible people.
5
this obsession by republicans with eliminating Obamacare from our collective healthcare system is pure, unadulterated racism. why else would they spend their every-waking minute trying to do away with it? i don't know why someone in power, a leading democrat, say.......has not called them on this atrocious pursuit in full view of the entire country. the name of a black man is on our healthcare system. good for him.
2
" ... the overall cost of the bill, which can add no more than $1.5 trillion to the deficit over 10 years and cannot add to deficits after 10 years ... Republicans made those changes to stay within Senate rules that allow them to pass the bill on a party-line vote ... " Where did previous conniving politicians come up with these arcane rules? What part of "balanced budget", which we citizens have to live with, is hard to understand for Congress? This "game" they're playing is going to give us all a concussion.
1
The reason ACA has a mandate is because our health care system is used as an income stream to build individual wealth.
This government is just set on eliminating responsibility and avoiding opportunity to build an organization that redistributes the wealth, which - come on people, we all know this is the most powerful cure - a protective factor against ignorance, homelessness, drug abuse, violence, greed, lust, wrath, and sloth. Greed isn't good. It's primitive.
3
this is what mental illness looks like - its never enough - it was tax cuts - now its also health care - next up Social Security and Medicare? these are people that need to be locked up together on a desert island.
11
APO , that was a given , their aim has always been to get rid of the so called entitlements , as they like to call them.
We just had a visit from a cousin who lives in Canada... We talked about his health care syatem... His wife died of cancer a year ago unfortunately, but received the most current care over an extended period of time for which he received no bill... His yearly charge for Canada's national insurance is just under $1,000...Everyone there understands the concept of insurance, even when one is young and healthy. He carries his insurance card in his wallet just as we carry automobile insurance. My cousin cannot understand why that is so hard to understand in this country. I don't understand it either.
10
Shall we start reducing the debt by having everybody in congress also lose their lifetime benefits ie: health insurance and pensions ? They would rethink this cockamammie plan to stiff the American public , lets also make them take a pay cut too while we're at it and reduce their gofor staffs. I'm sure there are personnel in their offices that are non essential.
7
This is sort of like a circular firing squad, where the tax cuts are in the circle, the bullets provided by republicans obsessed with ending national health insurance (ACA). This is like the gang that couldn't shoot straight--taint the current legislation with the bills you just failed to pass because the public clearly woke up to the bait-and-switch scam.
This would, if passed, create a whole series of new 'taxes' in communities across the country, where locals either pay for the things they value that tax revenue no longer covers (assistance for those with limited means) in a variety of forms that don't get labeled as 'tax,' or many people who depended on government support simply get poorer, sicker, and die sooner. And they want to reduce the charitable contributions deduction, too. The trick, apparently, is not to do their jobs as public servants, but to avoid accountability for robbing from the poor to give to the rich (a concentration of wealth which conveniently happens to benefit republican campaign fundraising to boot).
Dickens couldn't have cooked up a meaner plot.
6
They REALLY don't want poor people to have health care in this country. And what's with this shell game they have created with funds. If you want to see how that is going to work out, look at Louisiana. We're facing a fiscal cliff, mostly because the state continues to subsidize corporations.
4
I hope that the more than 1400 people who are complaining about this in the NY Times are also taking a few minutes to contact their congressional representatives about it, too, because they are the ones who really need to hear our objections. Otherwise, we're just preaching to the choir.
4
My gut feeling is that attaching the mandate repeal to the Tax cut bill is blackmail to get those resistant to repeal to go along with the perennial carrot and stick of Tax cuts
3
why not just attach a rider or provision buried deep in this wonderful tax bill to bring back slavery and give the Repubicans the trifecta of their dreams?
there are some people, somewhere, perhaps, who favor this kind of Republican plan... but for most of us this is nothing short of taxation without representation and has only gotten as far as it has because the GOP has gerrymandered conservative, rural districts to overwhelm those of us who can think straight.
1
If our Senators were in the least moral people, they would add a rider tot the bill ending government paid health and other benefits for the President, and every member of Congress. If government health care is so evil they should not have it either. the also get a very fat retirement package. Get rid of that too. Let them face the same problems as the people who elected them have.
3
If President Obama did not promise lower premiums, " keep you Dr. ",, and better health care for all Americans things would be completely different in the USA and maybe the world right now.
Those lies helped create President Donald Trump.
1
@Joe Paper: Obama was talking about what he and the Democrats were envisioning for this bill.
Unfortunately, everyone hears what the president says on TV, not what is discussed in congressional committees. If everyone had been able to watch congressional committees dealing with the details of this bill, we all would have come away with an entirely different perception of what the ACA would and would not provide.
Ultimately, Congress left it up to physicians to decide whether or not they were going to participate in the ACA. That was Congress' biggest mistake. They should have mandated that every physician in the country be required to accept ACA insurance. But instead, they let the AMA lobbyists walk all over them and allowed physicians to opt out.
If they had done the wise thing and mandated physician participation, nobody would have lost their doctors. By leaving it up to the physicians, many people did lose their doctors - an outcome not originally intended by the Democrats, but one that was definitely supported by Republicans, who argued that forcing doctors to accept ACA insurance would infringe upon their freedom to work with the people they want to work with - wealthy customers willing to pay inflated prices being the preferred patient cohort of many physicians.
1
" the wise thing and mandated physician participation " ???
Hmmmmm,,,,,We live in a free country...
With statements like yours , one can add that to list of why she lost.
1
Senator Obama OPPOSED individual mandate and even called it a penalty. He joked it was as if we could solve problem of homelessness by MANDATING that everyone buy a home OR ELSE. He said the mandate was not working well in Massachusettes and then his OBAMACARE was upheld by the Supreme court on the reasoning that the mandate was a tax.
So, why are liberals getting their knickers in a twist when the TAX REFORM package deals with the TAX of Obamacare mandate?
Low-Information readers, I suppose.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/06/how-obama-broke-his...
1
@PISonny: The ACA is a Republican plan. It was devised by Mitt Romney and his buddies in Massachusetts, and included the mandate. Obama opposed the mandate for the reasons that the Republicans insisted upon it, especially when it looked as if a public option would be on the table. It was part and parcel of their plan to shore up the insurance industry and turn people away from thinking about universal healthcare, the Republicans' biggest bugaboo.
When the public option was removed from the bill, the mandate became the only tool for ensuring that enough people would buy health insurance, which is necessary in order to spread the costs among the largest number of people possible, and hence, keep premium prices low. This is why we have to support it now. Until there is a public option, the mandate is a necessary evil.
1
The Republican greed fest punishes their foes, tax payers in blue states. The 2016 election was such a travesty. As has been stated, rank and file Trump supporters will not be helped by these Republican efforts to pay off their big contributors and Trump. As the Senate works in its wretched isolation dreaming up ways to keep down the costs of governance so they can give the proceeds to the rich, voters are going to have to wait until 2018 to respond to the greed fest.
7
No matter what a politician does, it probably pleases some group and displeases others, because each group sees mainly the advantages or disadvantages to themselves. Some voters think short-term: the rent is due, the car payment is late, kids need school clothes; others can envision and worry about tomorrow and its possible needs, e.g., a health emergency. But tomorrow never comes, right? And it may not for a lucky few.
If you hate paying insurance premiums, because it's just money tossed down the toilet, you hate the individual mandate. If you need affordable health insurance, you appreciate Obamacare. People that hate being forced to pay for something they don't need (yet) and are strapped for cash have some legitimacy for their feelings, especially in the short term. They want that premium money to buy essentials and probably a large-screen TV, too -- TVs are essential to most Americans. Do you have one or two?
Politicians and propagandists can easily play on the emotions of any group, giving them further, and at least partially valid, reasons to love or hate government-mandated health insurance. Where you stand depends on where you sit (Nelson Mandela).
I'm for single-payer, but I also thought that leisure suits were a good idea and that Lance Armstrong was a decent sportsman. Turned out my judgement is highly fallible. Maybe yours isn't.
2
The republican party has become famous for underhanded tactics and cheap shots over the last 10 years, but I didn't think they'd sink this low. Throwing in the ACA mandate in a tax reform bill is truly mixing apples and oranges, but it does show how desperate the GOP is to come up with any evidence at all that they CAN govern - but only when forced to by their donors. But if they didn't have the ACA mandate to use as the carrot for reluctant congressional Republicans, what else is there that would encourage them to vote for the tax reform bill? If the tax reform bill can't stand alone on its own merit, what good is it? And what does that say for its effects on the country as a whole? What makes the GOP think their tax reform bill is needed RIGHT NOW THIS VERY SECOND? America has already achieved the 3% economic growth rate that republicans all thought was impossible without their so-called "help" in the form of this tax bill.
10
Articles like this one don't point out the contradiction in Republicans argument that the healthy should not be forced to pay for comprehensive insurance that benefits the sick. By eliminating the mandate Republicans will be forcing everyone who buys individual insurance to pay more to support the sick.
This time Congress will not repeal the rest of Obamacare - including the essential benefits package and the prohibition against excluding people with pre-existing conditions. So, premiums will spiral up each year as more and more people are priced out of coverage.
4
The Republicans are obeying their billionaire donors, who will never suffer from the laws being passed that destroy our air and water and medical insurance. A few billionaire families will be living in comfort on some mountaintop in New Zealand, but the children and grandchildren of these greedy and short-sighted Republican lawmakers will be cursing them for throwing away the wonderful treasure that was America when it was actually great.
11
I don’t see how any decent person could support this bill. There is plenty of capital to invest in new business in America. Spend a trillion on infrastructure, scientific research and higher education - including vocational training - and watch the increase in prosperity. Cutting hours commuters spend in traffic - and associated costs for fuel and auto maintenance - and reducing tuition at public colleges - will be worth much more to the middle class than token and temporary tax cuts. Where is the debate over alternatives, when the world’s largest economy is involved?
I can no longer call myself a conservative or a Republican as these categories have been pre-emptied by corrupt money and right-wing culture warriors. It’s time for a third party - and for a handful of Republican legislators to stand up for what’s rational, decent, and “right” in the non-Hannity meaning of the word.
11
The republicans in Congress have only one legislative plan, and that is to invoke spending tricks and tax tricks so they can continue to push more of our national wealth to very rich capitalists and away from the working class.
Like the one-trick-pony, still looking for their first legislative success, they fall back once more onto their only health bill proposal.
Namely, repeal or hobble Obamacare.
Cut health care spending and cause millions and eventually tens of millions to go without basic health care. Right behind that will be their chops to Social Security and Medicare.
All so their wealthy enablers and friends can continue to trade their hundred million dollar Gaugin and Renoir and Picasso baubles.
8
No one has explained why repealing the mandate would raise tax revenue. I don't wish to be overly technical but I think we should understand the mechanics of the Republican argument. The mandate costs an estimated $338 billions because that's how much Obamacare subsidies to insurance buyers costs the federal government. Eliminate the mandate and an estimated 13 million people drop coverage. The federal government saves money on the federal subsidies they would otherwise being paying to keep these people insured.
In effect, Republicans are saying they want Obamacare beneficiaries to drop insurance. Your health care costs too much. They can't pass a tax plan if you are insured. And what are we getting in exchange for reducing insurance coverage, raising premiums, and introducing uncertainty into the insurance markets? A lower corporate tax rate, elimination of the estate tax, and a tax increase for everyone else eventually. If you're not outraged already, you should be. Personally, I can see the wheels on the bus heading straight for my head because I've just been thrown right in front of it.
8
Hopefully there will be enough money from the middle class tax cut to cover the increase in health costs.
1
@RNS: What middle-class tax cut? People who live in states that have income tax will be paying double taxes. People who have severe or chronic medical conditions will lose their deductions and will therefore have a tax increase on top of having to pay more for their conditions. Families paying to put their kids through college will lose deductions and therefore pay more. Students trying to make it through grad school will pay higher taxes. Even doubling the personal exemption won't help, because losing everything else will cancel it out. As for many others, is it worth it in the long run for them to lose health insurance in exchange for a thousand dollar refund in April?
5
I'm not surprised.
Appalled, but not surprised.
If the Dems don't run with these facts (that the tax cuts for human beings will expire but the tax cuts for corporations are permanent and that the tax cuts would trigger cuts to social service programs that many in the red states depend on for survival) and propose their own alternative budget--perhaps the one that the Progressive Caucus proposed years ago--then they're hopeless.
8
This is not open government, it is not a return to regular order. Instead it is backroom deals and deception being used to undermine fellow Americans. The Republicans are intent on stealing the American dream, not helping people fulfill it. Driving the up cost of student loans, creating uncertainty in the housing market, and now driving millions out of insurance is not going to make America great.
9
I have EXCEPTIONAL and AFFORDABLE plans offering a Nationwide Aetna Network PPO that are benefit rich! The market is changing, I can lock in premiums through the end of 2018.
Repeal of the mandate would put Obamacare into a death spiral where the healthy drop the plan and the sickest face higher and higher premiums. The whole idea of insurance is to spread the risk. This would undermine that.
What's the purpose of this terrible proposal? To shovel most of the $1,500 billion (and more after 10 years) into the pockets of a small elite at the expense of middle class Americans, who will bear the brunt of the costs.
7
The thing that Republicans hate most about Obamacare, the requirement for everyone to buy health insurance from for-profit insurance companies. They forget, that is what makes this a Republican "market based plan."
We could have had a Democratic "government based plan" of healthcare for all Americans at lower cost and with better quality.
4
The thing that R's hate most about Obamacare is the Obama part.
This is a thinly disguised work of pain that will, in the end, call for cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Please vote it down.
12
The "mandate" and its threat of an IRS imposed "fine" were a farce from the gitgo.
Has the IRS ever imposed the fine on anyone who didn't provide proof of insurance on their 1040? And, what about those who don't file tax returns? How was the IRS supposed to punish them
How much was the fine for not having insurance? Last I heard, it was supposed to be in the $700 range. Let's see, several thousand for insurance premiums and deductibles weighed against several hundred for noncompliance. No wonder many folks choose not to be "covered" by government mandated "health" insurance.
The Washington political establishment is bogus. Plain and simple. Both sides of the divide. Bogus.
Americans will learn the hard way how bad this Republican Congress will have been for their individual family's bottom line. Instead of pulling everyone up by their bootstraps this Congress is hoping that giving big tax breaks to their donors will somehow trickle down to the middle class. Magical thinking will go only so far. Young Americans today will be hurting really badly by the time this tax plan really kicks in. By then the old men in this Congress will be gone and the whole country will face the truth hidden from them by this Congress and this president How sad. I suggest that anyone who wants to live comfortably in the future like their parents did in 2000 should start learning Chinese.
2
GOP is the Grand Old Plutocracy. More money for the rich and corporations insures more money donated to the GOP minions. This "tax plan" takes away the one thing average Americans might have enjoyed without wealth, their health.
8
I am in complete agreement that competent adults should be able to choose whether they have health insurance with one caveat: if they get sick or injured and come to an emergency department for care, they don't get it unless they have the money to pay upfront. Otherwise they are just lazy freeloaders who don't want to pay for their care but expect others to pay for it through higher insurance costs and taxes.
Let the Republicans add this to their bill removing the mandate and I'll be happy to support them. Of course, they don't have the guts to do this.
3
Can anyone believe the hubris of these guys? They use their overwhelming majority in the Senate to not only give tax cuts to the 1% and their corporate sponsors, but to also dismantle the ACA through whatever slight of hand they, or even worse Trump, can think up.
4
For GOP and Trump, Middle Class, Working class people have no value. They are like property owned by the super wealthy.
5
So darn much sleight of hand. Not only does this effectively raise premiums (by a lot) for insured people, but it also hides the fact that it costs ALL of us a lot of money when people aren't insured. Who do you think has to pay their medical bills when they get sick or in an accident? Those costs are wrapped into the costs WE PAY for medical services, and, hence, into our insurance costs. Not only will you probably not see a tax break, but now you'll see an even greater increase in health care costs. Lose lose!
4
Republicans love the smell of cash and dead Americans in the morning !
Greed Over People 2017
10
The Obamacare Mandate applies only to those with jobs that don't offer insurance. These workers can be sacrificed so the rich never have to pay taxes on capital gains or estates and never pay payroll taxes on all of their income.
It is a sick society that thinks the richest 10% need help when they already have 85.6% of family wealth. It seems they really just need for workers (modern day slaves) to be helpless.
7
Let's not forget that they're cutting $1 Trillion from Medicaid and $500 Billion from Medicare, in addition to the elimination of the Mandate.
The Republicans are perfectly happy to let all but the rich who own them be sick, suffer and die and for hospitals to close.
11
So as the schools and hospitals collapse, and the roads fall apart and the courts are backed up for ten years—where will we get the money to even run them, please?
Oh. I see. We'll just take what's left in Social Security and Medicare and end those greedy taker things. Sounds super!
8
The GOP say to their middle class constituents, "You aren't working nor praying hard enough.. so work harder - pray more and God will take care of you.."
The Democrats say to their middle class constituents, "You are doing OK- but our undocumented immigrants work harder than you- so you'll need to pay more in order to pay for them- even though we ask the rich pay their fair share- it will never happen and we too are bought off by the same lobbies so the chances of us ever getting more money from the wealthy are slim to none- so we'll keep coming back to you- and once again- undocumented immigrants still work harder than you."
The system is broke on both sides.
1
Perhaps it will become more clear to more people that the Republican Party is waging class warfare against the majority of Americans, all genders, all races and religions. I would like to see more coverage of these oligarchs in the donor class. We should learn as much as we can about them.
4
If you want to know about the oligarchs, just watch Trump. He says what they all think.
1
The best thing that could happen to this plan is that it goes away!
1
This tax plan has managed to do what morals, compassion etc could not do: turned some of my GOP neighbors into Democrats.
4
Whenever you think a Republican bill can't get worse, it does.
Now we're paying for the tax cuts for the super-rich by having 13 million more uninsured and steeply raising premiums for everyone else?
The dishonesty, disdain and outright cruelty of the GOP are beyond belief.
8
Yesterday we learned that 1% of the world owned 50% of the wealth. It's facts like these that must really annoy wealthy Republicans. All these years and they still only have half!
7
I could understand not requiring insurance if people paid for their own costs when they got sick, but these same people expect the rest of us to pick up their tab when they have a stroke or heart attack or are permanently disabled. If these people agree to have all put up a bond or have all their assets siezed or leave them on the street when they get sick then i would agree to it..
3
A tax cut for people that disappears in x years, a permanent tax cut for corporations and effectively yanking of health insurance. Yikes!!!!
4
How is this not obvious, rank corruption? I wonder what Justice Kennedy feels as the one who helped empower the current system of money buying influence through his Citizens United decision? Corporations and ultra-wealthy individuals can now own their own Congressman and when they are in cahoots, their own Congress.
The GOP better hope they can continue to fool a majority of the people all the time, because the likely backlash could be massive. It would be interesting if there is a backlash to see an Independent Counsel appointed to investigate how these "reforms (a/k/a corruption)" could even be brought to the floor for a vote.
5
These people are tone deaf and uninterested in anyone but their rich donors. There are only two things the 98% can do:
1) Raise your voice to those "not interested" in politics about what is happening and how it will affect them;
2) Vote these people out of office in 2018. Your vote counts!
6
People, regardless of whether you think your representatives are listening to you or not, regardless of how useless you think it will be, please call, write, or fax your representatives and object to this latest attempt to harm Americans not rolling in mountains of dough. It does make a difference. Put pressure on them!
9
The cruelty of the Republicans is breathtaking. They actually want to cut healthcare to millions so that the rich people and corporations get a huge tax cut. And if that wasn't enough, the middle class, which struggles for everything, is getting a tax hike - again, so that rich people and corporations get a tax cut. How is this even possible? What is the average person to do? Write and call your representatives does no good at all. How do the heartless Repubs sleep at night? My God.....
4
The worst thing about this debacle is that so many people do not want the Republican tax bill, do not want Obamacare dismantled - especially with no alternative - but feel absolutely impotent when it comes to stopping this thing.
The virtual health, wealth and happiness of the vast majority of Americans depends entirely on the decisions of a few key Republicans.
You want to yell and rant and rave, curse, stomp your feet, shake somebody. The tightness in my chest and roiling in my belly that I feel almost constantly since Trump was elected is unrelenting. That is not good for my mental health, and I'm sure all that cortisol coursing through my body all the time cannot be good for my physical health either. A governmentally induced stroke or heart attack can't be far off, with no money to pay for it.
Why would any administration want to put their constituents through this? Why would any Congressmen vote to strip one healthcare plan from it's viability, knowing they had no alternative to offer? Why would any Congressmen vote for a tax plan that vastly increases the debt while failing to address the obscene income inequality that threatens our people and economy - which, in fact, exacerbates that problem?
Here comes that impotent physical rush of frustration when I even speak about these matters. My instinct for self preservation tells me to shut down, to dig my head deep in the sand, sit on the couch and binge watch Blacklist.
But my adult self says Resist.
6
Yes, RESIST!
There is a movement of movements fighting back across the world. Join one or two. Fighting back is great for your stress and your health.
There is chanting and singing and dancing and art and writing good arguments and shutting down the bad and creating new things that are good.
Saving the world is fun and exciting and is good for everyone.
Find something you care deeply about and find the people that are fighting to save it. They need your help.
2
Here's a plan even Republicans should be for if they had half a brain: comprehensive universal health care, cradle to grave coverage for all. That's how it's done in civilized First World nations, if we're still considered in that category after putting an incompetent madman in the White House.
What's so good about universal health care? How about these apples: it covers everything, and it costs less. How can that be? For many Americans, especially those deplorable poorly educated Trump/Moore supporters, explaining this phenomenon would take too long, and then most of you would still not "get it".
So, it is a matter of whom do you trust? Trump, McConnell, Ryan or Barack, Hillary, Bernie, Nancy and Chuck. Yes, all it comes down to is which side are you on? It's actually an easy choice. Forget about all other issues. We're just talking health care. Or, if you've traveled like we have (my wife is French) simply ask someone who lives in countries which have such programs. I've yet to find someone especially our ages (we are in out Seventies) who would trade their health care for that of the United States. Not a one. Sure, they'll have complaints, but they still would not think of trading. This is so, this is not fake. From what I've noticed meeting Trump voters, most of them do not have a world view. They are all caught up in their tiny bubbles. They don't dare leave that bubble. The vastness of the US is what eventually may bring about its demise.
DD
Manhattan
3
You lost me and more than half of the county, when you said to trust establishment Democrats.
Schumer is for tax cuts for corporations. Hillary said on the Democratic Debate stage, universal healthcare can "never, ever happen."
The centrist Democrats who constantly attack their own base, and keep saying there is no money to pay for healthcare, education, or infrastructure made Trump possible.
Trump ran on ending the TPP, a trillion dollar infrastructure plan, and beautiful healthcare and education for everyone. That was Bernie's plan, except he left out taxing the super rich to pay for it. Trump ran to the left of Hillary, who promised none of these things, and won.
The Democratic centrists made Trump possible.
Until the Party gets rid of these corporate hacks funded by billionaires, millions of workers will see no party that represents them, and continue to not vote.
If you want the people to vote, give them a good reason.
The center is not a side. Who's side are you on?
Republicans decided to not work with Obama when he was president and to undo everything he did while president unilaterally without any thought to what was done or being undone. This is not intelligent policymaking.
3
Anyone who chooses not to purchase insurance needs to have "Opt Out Citizen - Do Not Treat" tattooed across the back of his neck. That way EMTs and emergency rooms will know the person has chosen not to receive medical care.
Don't save some bucks up front and then expect your stroke, car accident, heart attack, pregnancy or cancer to be treated on my dime. Join the risk pool or don't expect to reap the benefits later.
3
2018 will be a very bad year for Republicans and a great year for the rest of the country unless...
1
How is it even LEGAL to wrap such a massive public policy into another massive public policy? To say I'm disgusted isn't even halfway describing it.
5
How many of those who will be affected will have a say on this?
2
The richest 1%. The 1% makes 95% of all campaign contributions, so your opinion matters not.
Republicans are actually saying out loud that their billionaire donors are threatening to finance their primary opponents of they don't pass a tax cut for them now. And global corporate mass media is helping by continuously saying, "Republicans have to pass a tax cut bill now."
No they don't. They could pass legislation that is good for workers, instead of for the rich.
1
There's no end to Republican duplicity. They're perfectly willing to drive millions off health care, and have millions more purchase garbage insurance that covers nothing, so they can drop another $300B in the coffers of the rich. It's going to take years to undo the damage they are doing to this nation, but let's start by voting Democratic up and down the ballot in 2018.
3
Just any Democrat won't do. Centrist Democrats like Schumer are also calling for corporate tax cuts.
We need a party that actually represents workers.
Right now we have a party that actively represents the super rich, and another party that keeps telling workers, sorry there's nothing we can do.
2
It's all about what will become a smashing raid on the Treasury for Trump and his corporate sycophants. All of their manipulative, low tax, egregious wealth depends on US Gov't largesse. After all, only the Fed can print money. And print they will to satisfy the voracious Tarpian fixation that the so called private sector "job creators" feed into the political psyche.
2
The Fed just didn't the last eight years printing a net of $2 trillion that they have away to global banks under Quantitative Easing. That's about $6,000 for every citizen of the US, going to global banks.
If they had given that brand new money to each citizens equally, demand would have skyrocketed, and investment money would have been found to meet that demand.
The real economy trickles up. Giving workers more income is how you raise the tide. Trickle Down is a disproved excuse to cut taxes on the rich. Sup falling for it.
1
Oh for crying out loud. Republicans need to just tell the truth and say what they stand for. Survival of the fittest and richest. All others are disposable. If they could, and technically they could right now, repeal all labor laws and send working people back to the days of sweatshops, 100-hour workweeks, child labor and subsistence farming, they would. Come to think of it, subsistence family farming is not a bad way to live. Five acres, chickens and a milk cow, a garden plot and a woodstove and no boss telling you when you can take a bathroom break. Made America great, didn't it?
1
They tell everyone this all the time.
But instead of offering the working people what they want and need, Democrats refuse to promise anything. So the Republicans who promise all things to all people, while only delivering for the rich, continue to win.
1
Let's be real for a second. The ONLY thing that matters to this GOP led Congress is a legislative 'victory'. Does NOT matter what the bill contains. Don't be silly! And the ONLY way to achieve said victory is to follow every imaginable rule so that they'll require exactly ZERO Democratic votes. So that is precisely what they will do! How it effects the citizens is frankly irrelevant and it takes a fair bit of nerve to imagine ANYTHING otherwise...
2
What is really cool about the Republican tax code is that it will give a whole lot more money to the rich while triggering sequestration which means cuts in all of those programs they hate like Medicare. Those angry Trump voters are going to get a gift for Christmas. Just look for that lump of coal in your stockings.
2
Can I ask a simplistic question?
What problem are they trying to fix? Seems to me that right now two things are happening:
people are insured
the economy is doing well
So tell me again what problem they are fixing that is broken?
Because from where I sit, the biggest ills facing society right now are these:
1. Cultural Division
2. Gun Violence
3. North Korea/Russia
So what the heck are the Republicans doing? Are they trying to never get elected again?
5
$350.00 more per child. Obviously they know that will go to my student loan or health insurance and not my local economy. Wait, since I'm not buying a house ever it can go to rent. I should have been an addict; at least there is money there, and housing. Keep the mandate and tax cuts separate. I'd rather have health insurance with a 7500.00 deductible than more of a tax cut.
1
The $350 deduction for a child is temporary (5 years) but the elimination of your exemption for that child is gone forever. Oops.
10% increase in premiums? I would welcome that. My premium went up 82% this year
Medicare for all anyone?
1
Imagine the United States Supreme Court upholding a law that forces U.S. Citizens to purchase over-priced and inadequate health insurance from an industry that has proven itself time and time again to be fraudulent, inefficient, and corrupt, while at the same time using taxpayer dollars to subsidize premium payments to these same for-profit, private, and stockholder satisfaction-driven corporations.
That is what the mandate does. It was a brilliant move by these companies to add that to the ACA bill (who wrote almost all of the ACA as well).
Single Payer is the only way forward. The rest of the modern world has proven this already.
1
The Democrats exempted all non-citizen residents from the mandate, as well as their penalty. The end of the mandate for citizens just returns some equality in the playing field. Both on the need for insurance and the penalty for not having insurance.
Simple strategy for Democrats: Drive home the fact that it’s tax cuts for the rich vs. a reduction in Social Security for the rest of us. Keep stressing that point. Make it personal.
3
It's almost like these GOP Senators and Congresspeople don't have constituents to answer to.
And, no, I'm not counting high-dollar donors and corporations as constituents.
1
Let's remember that Democrats and other like minded people sought to save
everyone's lives with the Affordable Care Act. The Republicans are inclined otherwise with their attempt to repeal the mandate and the Act.
2
Republicans are now openly saying that they have to pass tax cuts for the rich this year because their political donors are threatening to finance their primary challengers. 95% of political donations come from the 1%.
The views of the 99% are not considered. Each citizen will take on $4,600 in new federal debt to pay for tax cuts for the rich. That is the definition is oligarchy, rule by the few, or plutocracy, rule by the rich, or kleptocracy, rule by thieves. We are all three.
Step one to end the oligarchy and take back government from the 1% is an amendment to the constitution:
Corporations are Not Persons and Money is Not Speech.
MoveToAmend.org
3
As one who's never created a child of my own, why not give me a tax rebate then while they're at it? It seems I should deserve one too. Rewarding people for ballooning the population seems more counter-productive to future generations than controlled development. There are luxury taxes on lavish items, the same should be true for the indulgence of a couple wanting three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten kids.
2
The money is not for the parents, but for the children. We must invest in children if we want them to do well. Do not punish the children and society for the mistakes of parents. It is counter productive.
Caymen Island, Isle of man are cheering the tax bill.
The extra money rich will get from tax cut is most
likely to end up in tax havens for further reduction
in their tax bill. Tax cut will provide no boost to
the economy. Most advanced countries provide
health care to all its citizens, USA remains an exception
which deprives needed healthcare to all.
3
The bill contemplated by the House and Senate (it has passed in neither branch as yet) factors some the rich and affluent; namely corporate titans,owners and partners of pass-throughs and those multibillionaires and billionaires favored by the changes in the estate tax.Many affluent, high earners in the 1%,especially in the five large blue states with high state, local and real estate taxes will be hurt. The money going to the middle-class is nominal.On the matter of repeal of the individual mandate of Obama, which may be included,I see and hear it being reported that 13 million people will lose their coverage. Nothing prevents these people from maintaining exactly their same policies. Many, maybe 13 million, will, on their own, choose to not buy it. It is a choice. Some will call it Russian roulette (sorry for bringing up Russia) but with only one bullet in 100 chambers for the young and healthy. Older, sicker Americans not covered by Medicare/Medicaid will have to foot that bill. All in all a lousy bill.
Why does this all sound less like meaningful legislation to benefit citizens, and more like 'gaming the system' to me?
2
So, instead of maybe reducing the cost of the tax cuts by reducing the amount of the cuts for the wealthy and highly-paid, the Republicans think it would be better to have more people walking around without health insurance. Got it.
3
Lost in the Tax Proposal cacophony it's not just the elimination of a 'mandate' putting the health of citizens at risk. The health of The Planet is at risk as well
The Arctic Wildlife Refuge in Alaska is in the crosshairs this week with a Republican Amendment to the budget opening the Arctic Refuge to drilling to justify the Republican tax cuts. ( Why not contribute to global warming eh?)
The Refuge is of unsurpassed ecological value and beauty and has been fought for and protected for decades and now it's at risk for a dirty dollar.
If you care about the Country we leave to Future Generations of Americans Call our Republican friends and remind them that it was a Republican, Barry Goldwater, who saved the Grand Canyon for future generations of Americans.
Once gone the ARTIC WILDLIFE REFUGE IN ALASKA is gone FOREVER.
2
What is their problem? Don't they want people to have good health?
2
32% of Americans are obese, another 33% are overweight.
Who, exactly, doesn't want people to have good health?
What is your point exactly? Are you saying overweight people don't deserve health care? What about people born with heart defects or some other congenital problem not caused by lifestyle? Would you deny them health care? You know - some day somebody you care about - a grandchild perhaps - will be born with a serious health problem. And when that day comes you will be glad if Obamacare is still around so that they can get health care when they become adults.
"...are attempts by Republicans to solve two problems..." - THE problem is the GOP control of Congress, which only we the people can solve. Here's hoping we start to do so next November. The alternative is bleak - unless you are a gazillionaire.
5
Stand tough, Senator Collins! We're counting on you.
1
It is so SAD to see that the GOP has a total lack of concern and compassion for all Americans and are willing to reward the rich and sacrifice the middle class with their new tax (aka let's try to kill the ACA again) plan.
3
Republican failure on some kind of major tax change is just not an option.
If they can’t get this dome, 2018 will surely become a brutal rebuke of their stark incompetency and a brazen repudiation of Trump as anything but an out and out sham president.
Simultaneously trashing the ACA individual mandate essentially kills Obama Care leaving millions in a lurch and guaranteeing major chaos in the healthcare market place. Absent a viable GOP alternative this can only be seen as more draconian incompetence.
It is hard to see how the party of Lincoln can come out of this without incurring huge liabilities in the midterm elections which are but a hairs breath away.
Our entrenched, diametric partisanship at its very worst.
2
I am certain that our "socalled" president has Not bothered to think this attack on the American working classes through to its final conclusion, the alienation of his base. That or he believes that they are too feckless to realize what it will do to their health care access.
The idiocy of the dominant party has cost them more than they must realize for they continue to reach for all or nothing and they keep coming up empty. This new twist has a very good potential to once again inflame the Freedom Caucus into doing what they do best, just say no.
The best minds & most corrupt hearts the oligarchs can buy. No surprise.
while they are at it, why don't they pass a law to allow people to buy home insurance while their house is on fire and to let er's throw people out if they don't come in with a pile of 100's in their pocket?
2
So, let me get this straight. I’m required to have car insurance, but health insurance.... who needs that? If I get sick and die...I’m jut dead! Hit someone’s car or get in accident...I’m covered.
3
Car insurance is reasonably priced and affects those around you directly (unless you hit a tree, not another car).
Health insurance, on the other hand, is over-priced, fraudulent, and toxic.
2
Only if you have a car.
Most people have come to realize DT is a sick and cruel bully.
However, DT is well within the amoral norms of the GOP. They're all in this together and he fits right in with the vast majority of the GOP.
So, this latest move to weaken the healthcare system of this country in order to help out long suffering billionaires by ripping away at Obamacare comes at no surprise whatsoever.
The only surprise I ever have is why anyone continues to vote Republican. I can only conclude they are totally ignorant or have no decency themselves- or both.
4
It appears that our political process has run its course, where our elected representatives are feebly beholden to special interests. Systemically the principal of human indifference prevails. Will our future be that of more501-3c and charities .if so what a tragedy for our progeny.
1
And I thought the republicans and Trump could get no more despicable. Boy, was I naive.
4
Rape the taxes of Americans,smash health. Destroy the middle class, destroy the poor, smash the American dream, ignore the devastated environment, alienate all allies, Gary played by China, Russia and the Saudi’s. Old men who won’t live to see the world end and don’t care about their children and grandchildren. Trump and the entire GOP.
2
Wow; just wow. Casually tossing the mandate into the mix just to balance the books on a tax cut for the Sheldon Adelsons of the world. Do these people ever sleep?
4
... and from now on, henceforth, all three-legged stools will have only two legs.
2
Republicans claim thagt if they don't pass this travesty they will be in trouble in 2018. If they do, they'll be in bigger trouble, unless of course, they know that gerrymandering, voter suppression, election hacking and election theft will save them.
5
Can't stand Republicans. But I have to admit they're a lot smarter, or cleverer,
than the 'common man' (white) who continually votes for them.
2
This is why the Senate seat from Alabama is pivotal to stopping these immoral vipers from destroying the working class in this country. The DNC needs to blanket the state in canvassers and get those unregistered, registered to vote.
2
As every iteration of this GOP tax cut madness unfolds it just gets worse. More breaks for the uber rich and corporations at the expense of everyone else. While the attention of the nation is focused on Roy Moore fondling teenage girls; the rest of the GOP establishment is raping the rest of us and providing expensive trinkets for their corporate mistresses and uber rich campaign contributors.
3
The GOP trickle down torture continues. $1.5T deficit...only GOP and their nasty math loves to kick people off of healthcare and drive America into greater debt.
Vote them out.
1
the Senate needs repealed
2
Getting rid of the mandate does nothing to prevent people from getting sick, nor does it do anything to reduce the cost of healthcare. All it does is shift the cost of the healthcare burden from one pocket to another. What the government saves in money by eliminating the mandate, the public has to pay in increased healthcare cost. It is like squeezing a balloon, when you make one part of the balloon cost smaller another part of the balloon cost has to get bigger. In this case the part of the balloon that gets bigger is the part of the healthcare burden paid for by people at the lower end of the income spectra. In that sense eliminating the mandate is a tax (healthcare cost) cut for the rich and a tax (healthcare cost) increase for the poor. It is disguised, but that is what it really is.
4
Hmm....wonder what Flake, Corker, McCain, Collins and Murkowski will do now.
4
The putrid stench rising up out of the current regime just becomes more unbearable day by day. When will we say enough is enough and do the necessary?
9
Another sleazy attempt by Republicans to deny poor and working class Americans healthcare along with no or little cut to their taxes. Vote it Down!!!
7
Repealing the mandate for insurance is lunacy. Unless healthy people and those with illness and injury “swim” in the same actuarial pool, insurance does not work. Imagine it was optional to buy auto or home insurance and you would only go looking for a policy after you had a car accident or your home burned down. It simply does not work and any Senator or Representative who tries to tell you otherwise is either too ignorant to serve in their capacity or they are lying to you. Write them today and ask which one they are. This is why Medicare for all is the only responsible and ethical way to get healthcare for all Americans.
3
Because they can’t get it passed any other way... then they’ll claim plausible deniability- I thought it was tax reform. God help us all. The republicans know we the people don’t want Obamacare to go. They have both chambers & even they won’t hold a straight vote because accountability. They know if they do a straight vote, it won’t pass & whoever votes yes to repeal will be losing their jobs. They had EIGHT YEARS to come up with a replacement plan but instead devoted all their energy to lip service. Why are they attacking our poorest & most vulnerable of our society? So disgusting!!!!
5
The whole excuse for this "tax reform" was the "70,000 pages" of tax code that needs to be simplified. But, while they are cutting corporate taxes by subtracting 15% from the nominal rate, they are not getting rid of any of the corporate loopholes that make up most of those pages. So the average effective rate of corporations will go from 15% to 0%. Of course the vast majority of small businesses are not corporations and will get nothing out of this.
The whole thing is a giant scam, as usual.
Why do small business people continuously support special treatment for their biggest competitors?
This is like a fever dream from which no one moderate, or decent, can awake. They just keep piling it on, smiling and confident that most people are too dumb, busy, trusting or bigoted to object. And now that sanctioned bigotry includes sick people. I’d like to think this level of hypocrisy, irresponsibility, venality and cruelty is unsustainable, but I’m not so sure anymore.
5
For you and me,,, this is all a tax increase. This is not a tax cut bill !!!
It is a tax increase bill !!!
And the removal of the insurance requirement,,,, so we have enough money to pay more taxes,,,,, ????
Low. ugly. Every Republican that votes for this should be ousted from office.
4
Why does the media keep calling it tax reform, or a middle class tax cut? It is neither.
On on hand Paul Ryan, Jeff Flake, John McCain and Mitch McConnell talk a good game when they resist the likes of Judge Moore in Alabama.
But underneath they are employing the very same calculus which Bannon and Trump identified in Alabama—turning a blind eye to the evils of white nationalism so they can stay in office. Goodbye health care, hello tax cuts for the filthy rich. Self perpetuation at any cost. On the heels of the poor!
All these shrewd, conniving, duplicitous, heartless, politicians need is 51 votes, and it we all will be coming from Alabama and playing banjos on our knees. Sad.
1
Corporate welfare.
2
There they go again!
1
I wish the Republicans would just call it - The Death Star Bill - so we'd all know what it really is.
2
good! even obama pushed the mandate down the road for the next president to deal with because it was a stupid idea
you cant tax people for not buying a product or service
1
The mandate was phased in over time, not kicked down the road.
You can tax people for not insuring themselves. The supreme court said so.
If you leave in the requirement to insure pre-existing conditions, but take out the mandate, all healthy people should rationally stop paying premiums. This would cause the insurance market to implode.
This is completely irresponsible.
In their attempt to generate the “Kansas Miracle” for the entire nation one can only pray that for those who vote for this unholy piece of filth their “vital” organs shrivel just like the economic disaster that will inevitably follow what we already know is faulty economics. We have seen what trickles down and it smells of the toilet in which it was cooked up.
1
Senate Republicans, have you no shame?
1
Once again the American political system looks fundamentally broken from the outside.
Do any other democracies try to legislate mixing completely different things in the bills?
Your country is just so munted. Your representation is broken.
Pathetic.
3
Time for a revolution to take back the “People’s” government!
Praise be to Jesus...
1
License to hate --the GoP has now given us license to hate their tax reform cum ACA emasculation bill and those who proposed and are supporting this partisan legislative monstrosity.
GoP Christian Charlatans turn their backs on at least 13 million poor and sick Americans who will lose health care and needy children who lose a crucial credit. The Hypocritic Oath prevails. The rich inherit the earth with windfalls from carried interest, pass through, estate taxes and reduced corporate taxes paying dividends (1/3 to foreigners) and funding buybacks. Blue states who tax their citizens are punished to benefit red states who live off th regressive sales taxes and the public dole. A Republican elephant passes through the eye of a needle followed by a fleet of luxury vehicles. The prosperity gospel and retrograde evangelical morality are marshaled --they are their (rich, white) brothers' keeper. The good Samaritan becomes the good rich Samaritan. Republicans become unMoored over whether a law breaking, bible thumping serial harasser should be allowed to run for office to maintain a precarious victory margin won by Russian and GoP duplicity.
It is time to hate --to hate greed and intolerance, misogyny, the GoP tax refom proposal and those who support it. The GoP has made it ok to hate.
When we halt this latest assault on humanity we can go back to --with care-- to our better selves...
2
Well the funny part about canceling the mandate is that those who cancel their insurance because it is no longer mandated will be losing the subsidy, and paying for part of the tax cut for the touch. The sad part is that when they end up in the emergency room, the government will pay for it, so it will come it puff everyone's pocket.
I would say that it’s time that all rational Americans finally do the right thing and destroy the GOP once and for all, but it appears the GOP is destroying itself.
The wheels have come off, America, and that circus of idiots is taking us all down with them. And for what? For Donald Trump? Really?
5
The Democrats keep letting then do these things without putting up a fight. By constantly moving to the center, while the Republicans move to the right, the center keeps moving too. Democrats have made this possible by constantly begging for compromise.
If you have a right party, and a center party, the whole political system goes out of balance.
Meanwhile this fake center does not represent the actual middle of public opinion. If it did Clinton would have won.
The left is the workers. The right is the rich. The workers outnumber the rich by at least 4:1.
If the Democrats actually represented the workers they should be able to get four times as many votes. But the Democrats keep saying that policies that help workers are impossible, and that is why they lose 2/3 of all elections.
The Democratic Party must fight for workers to restore balance, not make excuses for doing nothing.
The Republicans keep following their activists and keep winning elections. The Democrats keep insulting their activists and keep losing elections. How many decades will you follow this losing strategy?
All Americans should remember that it was a Republican who uttered a phrase that has been changed in the modern language of the Grand Old Party (?) to a government of business, by business and for business.
At one time a business was expected to offer necessary products at competitive prices backed by required services to the public in order to thrive. Now it requires, and seems to be getting, government care and feeding in order to remain competitive! But if all business gets the same benefits how is competition anything but static with greater income?
Will reducing business taxes prevent the appearance of a $2,000 iPhone in a few years while the income of middle class citizens remains relatively stable? Will GM increase its workforce and average income of workers by anything near the percentage of tax reductions they will receive? Will lobbying decrease from its current control of government operations and planning over actions of the government with businesses paying less taxes? Unquestionably not!
America, land of the free or America land of business?
Don't worry. Most businesses get nothing out of this. This is designed for global corporations to get massive tax cuts. Most small businesses are not corporations and most do not pay more than the 25% pass through tax.
How they get small businesses to support tax cuts for their biggest competitors I don't understand.
The GOP tax cuts ill establish a solid foundation for a campaign to provide us all with euthansia on demand. It will be the only form of medical assistance available to most senior citizens and others in need of expensive health care. Do the math.
1
No, the Christian conservatives will never consent to euthanasia on demand. They'd prefer that everyone suffer and die in pain, for Jesus!
Finally some backbone from Congress. We all know the ACA has been failing and will fail in time. Get rid of it now and stay out of it. America was doing fine before its adoption and it will do fine after its repeal.
1
Before ACA, insurance corporations were giving commissions to employees that could find an excuse to throw sick people off their coverage. We paid twice as much per person as any other country for far worse results. If you switched jobs, you had to switch your insurance, so if you were sick, you were locked in to your job. Forget writing to start a small business.
I'm not a fan of the ACA. I would prefer Medicare for all, or at least a public option, but to claim that everything was fine before is just lying to yourself or lying to us.
Not exactly.
As a single, professional working parent, I was able to realize my goal of owning my own house three years ago. I did this to provide a home for my children and invest in my community. Our school district is small and so local taxes are steep. Eliminating the deduction for local taxes will take a large amount of money out of my pocket. Thankfully, Obamacare helps keep healthcare costs at a minimum for me....for the time being.
Oh yes, did I mention that my income (well below $100k) makes it difficult for my children to be eligible for grants and certain student loans. Yes, the squeeze of the middle class is tightening.
3
Why should I be penalized with a tax for not being able to pay high premiums for health insurance when doctors and insurance companies that do not participate are not penalized? I say get rid of the mandate - it is discriminatory.
Maybe you should get rid of car insurance mandates too.
And then pray you don't get hit.
I don't drive, but can file a lawsuit. Most drivers do not have enough insurance to cover the costs of physical injuries to other drivers/pedestrians, so its a wash.
There are comments focused on trying to defend ending the mandate, as if the majority of those without insurance pay their medical bills, while completely ignoring the second paragraph.
"Republicans revealed late Tuesday they would set all of their tax cuts for individuals to expire at the end of 2025, to comply with a procedural requirement. Their deep cut in the corporate tax rate would remain permanent."
This is an incredibly bad tax bill for the middle class irrespective of the mandate.
2
The ACA is not the only health care program the Republican want to gut. The have also stated that they want to cut Medicare, and those cuts will come automatically. We will finance a deficit on the backs of seniors. The Times say something about this but not enough. It should be a strong lead. Senior vote, and we have already paid our dues. Woe be unto the party that hurts the Medicare program.
3
"Woe be unto the party that hurts the Medicare program."
Republicans opposed Medicare from day one,
( in opposition to Medicare, Reagan described what would happen if it passed, ending with: "one of these days we are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.")
and have been working to voucherize and destroy it ever since, yet they still got the majority of the Seniors' vote, so I guess they think they can keep up the destruction to Medicare and get away with it by continue to fool and lie to people.
2
I agree with you. They have gotten away with it—so far. But when people start getting their bills and watch their premiums go up, that will change. You should see town hall meeting here in Florida on this subject.
Wilton- Thank you so much for these encouraging words from Florida!
Republicans have been blabbing for years about bringing overseas corporate operations back to the US. This tax scam, to the contrary, eliminates taxes on overseas profits AND does away with the deduction for domestic production.
Thanks, NY Times, for the great graphic showing how this piece of (legislation) has been created by the rich for the rich.
Are there at least three conscientious Senators willing to vote against it?
1
Yes, they are giving a tax cut to corporations that move capital and intellectual property out of the USA.
Trump is a global billionaire. He only plays a populist on TV.
Every poll to date, since the inception of Obamacare, has shown overwhelming dislike by the general public for the individual mandate, approaching 75% of the public wanting it repealed. If the GOP guts the mandate they will be doing something the American people have wanted. What is wrong with listening to the people??
1
The people have been misinformed. The mandate which was thought up by Republicans to prove that markets could be assured not to include all, not just sick people, has been reframed by Republicans to be an unjust denial of freedom. For insurance to be useful and profitable, the risks must be predictable. The mandate makes market based solution feasible.
Not exactly. According to " Trump said the individual mandate is "highly unpopular." As recently as February 2017, a YouGov poll found that 65 percent of people opposed it, a finding that is consistent with earlier polls from other organizations. That’s a fair sign of the provision’s unpopularity.
On the other hand, when people were given more details about the mandate, they had a more favorable view, as high as about 60 percent.
And in the context of repealing the Affordable Care Act, the most recent polls found the public generally split 50/50 on whether to keep the mandate in force.
Public opinion about the individual mandate is not a simple black-and-white choice. As a leading expert explained, people might not love it, but they are willing to live with it."
The mandate makes the rest of the ACA possible. If you force insurance corporations to cover pre-existing conditions, but don't force healthy people to have insurance, then everyone would, rationally, cancel their insurance and wait until they get sick to buy insurance. That defeats the whole point of insurance, which is to spread risk across all healthy people so that those who get sick don't lose everything to pay medical bills.
Cutting the mandate is a scam that risks destroying the entire insurance market.
Of course this will be an excuse next year to stop covering pre-existing conditions. Then we will be back to insurance companies paying commissions to employees for throwing sick people off their plans.
The Republicans are the death panel.
Are we ever going to wake up from this nightmare? Very little is said about the billions of dollars that will be taken from Medicare and Medicaid. We, as average people, have no place to turn. The Republicans have a stranglehold on America. They've finally done it, Ayn Rand would be proud.
Republicans have a stranglehold on America because Democrats let them.
Every Democratic office holder should be on a soap box in front of their office explaining how this will hurt everyone who is not rich. Instead they hide.
You do not affect policy by hiding in the center, just as you do not affect a see-saw by sitting on the fulcrum.
While the Democrats hide, the Republicans are at the extreme multiplying their strength just like a lever.
Centrist Democrats are helping Republicans destroy our country.
Primary them!
Perhaps the Republicans could include a healthcare waiver provision. If you don't pay for healthcare, you don't get healthcare. That solves two problems, people that don't like the mandate and people who mooch of those that do pay.
Hey, it's harsh, but we need to Make America Great Again!
2
Enough is enough. Republicans have put forward another last minute proposal to gut the Affordable Care Act. After hearing American's outcry against their previous efforts, and fearful of another similar outcry, Republicans now attempt to disguise their effort. They have attempted to hide their plan as part of their "comprehensive tax bill" and then further attempt to pass this legislation before Americans have a chance to react. Americans should reject these unsavory tactics. Either, this effort to destroy the Affordable Care Act should be defeated, or if not, those in favor of it will be in the next election.
I am self -employed, just turned 60, my husband (also 60) has cancer. We finally could afford health insurance with the individual mandate under Obama Care aka Affordable Health Care. Yes, premiums have gone up and every year our network of doctors accepting Obama Care has shrunk. But FINALLY we had health insurance. Now the Republicans want to take it away to be able to deliver their promise to the top 1%. Read the Paradise Papers! They CAN find the money to deliver their tax cuts without literally killing the middle class.
2
Once the Republicans give up my tax payer funded health insurance, I'll start taking their attempts to deprive others of health insurance as sound fiscal policy. Until that day, I'll continue to believe that these heartless individuals could care less if people die because they can't afford healthcare or if hospitals that treat these people in emergency rooms go broke.
1
The Republican base never ceases to astound me. The thing is they truly believe government wastes all their tax dollars. Yet they have no clue how the money is spent. Yes of course there is waste, there will always be waste. But, the real benefits of all these programs by in large far out ways the cost. Mean while the Republicans in congress use this anger to allow corporations (paper legal people) to not pay taxes. And in the end benefits will be cut. Things that literally make america great will disappear for a while. People will suffer needlessly.
Wait a minute.... if they can't push this through before Dec 12th does that me if Alabama goes a bit blue we may have a chance of saving this democracy from these cretins?
2
This whole thing smells like a week-old fish....
Making America Great Again. Just yesterday, in America:
* Another mass shooting (but it's not a gun problem).
* Alabama is on the way to electing a pedophile to the senate.
* The Attorney General (Jeff Sessions, of course) is caught in more lies when testifying about the Russia scandal.
* Mich McDonnell's solution to the Alabama problem is to return Jeff Sessions to the Senate.
* Republican's are so desperate to give tax breaks to the rich that they are willing to tax graduate students and take away health insurance.
More like Making American a Huge Embarrassment.
3
If the "short and fat" guy in North Korea ever decides to launch missiles at the US, let's hope his aim is good and hits the "lunatic old man" in the White House and hid deplorables who sit in Congress and dream of new ways of harming the vast majority of the American people while stuffing the pockets of the fat old men like the Kochs, Adelson, Mercer etc. None of these guys seem to fathom that ultimately they will die and their stinking money won't be able to follow them nor will it help them in eternity.
Memo to the low-information base- you're getting hosed. Again.
By your old white guy bible thumping "friends" who enjoy their taxpayer funded Cadillac health care (for their whole family), and their double digit returns on investments. They are not even breaking a sweat in their expensive suits.
There is NOTHING in any of these tax cuts for the wealthy for you. And defunding the ACA by rolling back the individual mandate will bite you in your uninsured bum. Pray you don't get sepsis.
Why do I care? (I will be just fine.) Maybe because I believe basic health care in the richest nation on the planet is a right that you and I deserve. And I don't want oligarchs, plutotcrats and despots running our country.
You have been SO major league conned.
1
But Mr. Scrooge, poor Tiny Tim needs a surgery so he can walk again? Sorry, Scrooge needs more money to buy another vacation home in The Hamptons.
1
Mr. McCain, do $$$ trump healtcare?
Don’t you have enough $$$?
Vote NO to this sham of a plan.
4
There are a number of practical reasons for supporting the Mandate but the most important one is when a healthy non insured person gets injured or sick we have a choice to make. Either let him die or take care of him. It is a lot like auto insurance that is mandated for obvious reasons. It is a no-brainier that healthy people are well aware that we will take care of them and absorb the cost.
6
there are no practical reasons to fine poor people for not being able to afford a product.
they already cant afford it and you wanna kick them while they are down on top of it???
I say if he was capable of buying insurance and chose not to, let him die and decrease the surplus population.
Ensuring that one does not become a burden to society is Job 1 for everyone -- before vacations, before taking on the costs of having children, before cars and dining out and Pottery Barn and whatever else people fritter on. People who thumb their noses at society deserve the same in return.
The individual mandate is a fee that raises revenue. Ending the mandate itself costs the government money. But those people who drop coverage because it is not mandated will save the government money.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/repealing-the-individual-mandate-would-sav...
Of course when they get sick without insurance, the government will end up paying the tab anyway, but they are not counting that.
Dropping the mandate, reducing the pool of insured, will raise rates for everyone else about 10%. So of you want insurance, this will cost you money.
The point of the mandate is that with no limits on pre-existing conditions, no one has a reason to get insurance until they get sick. This defeats the entire purpose of insurance, which is for everyone to pay into the risk pool so that those who get sick are not financially devastated by health care costs.
If everyone pulls out of the market until they get sick, the entire insurance industry will collapse.
This Bill is the height of irresponsibility.
8
What about the revenue generated by the tax/fine people now pay for NOT buying insurance? What does that amount to? When you repeal a tax, like say, the estate tax, you have to offset the lost revenue in the budget somehow of go deeper into deficit country, don't you? Of course, nobody wants to pay a tax for health insurance they don't have so it's bound to be popular with people who have been paying the mandated coverage fine. Whoopee for them! A big tax cut!
1
"Repealing the mandate, a longstanding Republican goal, would save hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade. That would free up money that is earmarked to expand middle-class tax cuts."
The last sentence in this paragraph is entirely incorrect. It should read, "That would free up money that is earmarked to cut taxes on the ultra-rich and corporations." Let's call it what it is.
5
im not rich and the new tax plan would save me almost 5 grand a year. that is HUGE when you only make about 45 grand a year pre tax
Here is another point to consider about this tax plan - how much will it cost YOU the taxpayer? It is chock full of goodies for people who don’t usually pay taxes anyway but the majority,of us people do pay taxes are going to see steep increases. What effect will this give away have on local schools, local law enforcement, local infrastructure? The reality is that our Congress is pulling a tax cut of the hat for billionaires and a tax increase for most other people - and that’s not taking into account what hospital costs will be in the future, because of increased use of the ER
2
The objection to the mandate is it makes people above the subsidy line buy insurance they can't afford. The problem with canceling the mandate is healthy people won't buy insurance making the risk pool sicker, driving the cost of insurance up.
The reason the republicans want to add this provision is the budgetary math allows for bigger tax cuts for the mega rich if repealed. How about this...retain mandate for people making above $150k, use any remaining savings to subsidize a public option for working people earning above the subsidy line.
3
I took my daughter to Accident & Emergency last weekend. Later in the day, we returned to visit a specialist doctor on an emergency basis.
Cost out of pocket? Zero
Health care quality? Excellent
Pulling back on this mandate is a huge step backwards. Everyone should be paying contributions so that, on that one day healthy individuals need it, the system is there for you.
It works well in other countries and the annual cost is fairly low (8% for me, from gross income). What I paid this year I already got back last weekend.
6
Goodbye infrastructure works, goodbye health care, goodbye jobs (CEO's already made it clear to Cohn that with more more they will buy back shares, pay shareholders and NOT build new factories or add jobs--they are already awash in money.) With Trump's "Make America Small" campaign there will also be added tariffs on lobsters and grain exports --goodbye family farms.
This Congress is racing themselves and Trump to see how much they can dismantle in government, social programs and commerce. The US is no longer a global leader (except in mercenary forces). Our sole remaining export seems to be fighting and weapons; we have special ops in 70% of the world's countries. But diplomats? Just Trump.
5
The Republicans have had years to come up with a tax plan, and yet the best they can do is this? They are slapping together a bill that will have long term effects on the economy and more importantly peoples' lives. Yet they have no neither the time nor the interest to judge its impact. All this to prove that they and President Trump can "get something done". The people who say Republicans can't govern have it exactly right.
5
Dear President Trump (and Republican friends)
I know that morality is of no interest to you so I'll just deal in plain facts.
1. Your country is $22 trillion in debt.
2. Your country has 5% of the world's population but 33% of the world's debt.
3. Your country has a rising GDP to debt ratio of well over 100%.
4. Rich American's don't keep their money in America.
5. Rich American's don't spend their money in America.
6. Tax cuts for rich Americans will mean more money leaving the country.
7. A tax cut for poor Americans funded by a tax increase for rich Americans would mean more money being spent in the country and would not add to your country's debt.
8. You say you aim to increase the rate of growth of your economy.
9. More money being spent in your country will achieve this with the additional benefits of improving your GDP to debt ratio and minimizing future debt interest payments.
8
Dear GM. Now, if we can just get Republicans to value "plain facts."
Trust me, they couldn't care less.
That, sun impoverished dinosaur, Orrin Hatch, sits in a bubble of self imposed ignorance. He may perfectly understand your logic, but he will go to his grave with his conservative self serving dogma, which is spelled, h y p o c r i s y.
Don't worry, as soon as a Democrat is elected, all your points on the debt will be strictly enforced.
1
The mandate was the Republican's idea. The deal was that the Democrats on Max Bauccus's committee drop the public option and add an individual mandate. That was the deal.
5
This will solidify Obamacare as a subsidized insurance program for lower middle class Americans and let the unsubsidized upper middle class buy only the insurance they need in the individual market in the states where boneheaded community rating laws haven't killed the market. It will actually protect Obamacare as a permanent part of the American healthcare puzzle by reducing opposition. Freedom is works.
The Republican Congressman Chris Collins (represents the region between Buffalo and Rochester in NY) said that a donor told him that if this doesn't pass the donations will stop.
Even with Citizens United and McCutcheon, isn't that still a clear statement of a quid pro quo illegal bribe?
8
The CBO is deceiving the American people. 22 million Americans did not buy health care insurance in 2016. Most paid the Obamacare tax. Eliminating this tax will save more than $300 billion over ten years. These people chose not to have health insurance - how can the CBO possibly claim that they will lose insurance coverage. Why does the NYT not challenge the CBO finding? The NYT is nothing more than a propagandist for Democrats - it is not a real news organization.
1
When the mandate is removed, numbers of people who now have healthcare insurance will drop their coverage. Therefore the number of uninsured people will increase, which is precisely what the CBO has said. Of course when the uninsured get sick and can't pay their bills the cost of healthcare will increase across the board for everyone else to make up for the loss.
2
There's an obvious problem with your logic. If you eliminate a pure tax, which is income to the government, instead of savings you get a loss of revenue. The current Senate tax plan is counting on $300 billion in lower costs over ten years. That means that some significant percentage of people who would otherwise be subject to the individual mandate are buying insurance and being subsidized. You can't have it both ways. If significant numbers of people aren't buying insurance (opting to pay the tax instead), then the Senate bill can't count the $300 billion as savings.
2
The article states that " 13 million fewer Americans being covered by health insurance by the end of that period". Perhaps you need to re-read the article. Also, what is the source for your statement?
2
Will these guys ever stop? Most Americans do not want this! Why aren't our elected officials listening!
5
The Republicans ARE listening: but to their wealthy donors, not to "most Americans".
6
Because they only listen to people with lots of money, then only to the rich who want no one else to have two pennies to rub together. There are rich people who aren’t greedy SOBs. Some spend money on Charity overseas. That should be taxed at a rate of a 100% of the amount spent. Help those in this country first & foremost.
Also tax congressional salaries & all benefits at 100% per year forever. Maybe they can get more cash from their benefactors, illegally to pay for food. I will kick in to build dormitories for all of congress to live in. Oh, should call them tenements. With tours every day so we can see how our elected officials live. One toilet per floor with 10 Family rooms per floor. Once shower per 10 floors. After all it’s charity to give them a place to live at all. Must not be comfortable. Oh no congressperson may own a home in their home states, but, live in political tenements of the same type. Let them see how the lower half lives, by living that way. Politicians are lower down the food chain than any other people. Except maybe the filthy rich.
It's time for some tough love. If you're healthy uninsured person and you break your leg in skiing accident, fix it yourself. This country is all about freedom, and Republicans are giving you the freedom to roll the dice. Feeling lucky?
8
I assume Collins and McCain are no votes. How is yard warrior Ayn Rand Paul feeling?
7
This is not a mandate anyway.
Not a single person languishes in jail today because they didn't pay their ObamaCare taxes, and people who would normally pay taxes know this.
The power to force a mandate is a power the US Constitution gives to the STATES. By a 7-2 Supreme Court Ruling just 4 years ago, they affirmed that the federal government does not have the power under the commerce clause to mandate that people buy health insurance; the states do.
So why is is that 9 years after the passing of ObamaCare, only one state in the US has passed a state law mandating that their residents have health insurance, with penalities and enforceable fines equal to over 75% of the premiums they would have paid?
Why have NY, CT, NJ, IL, CA, WA and OR and all the other progressive bastions failed to help ACA stay on it's feet?
Why have these Progressive states failed to recognize what MA recognized on day 1...that the federal tax was...indeed....a toothless joke.?
3
Have been and always will be a proud democrat.
8
Went so well the first ten tries...guess they want the tax measure to bomb?
4
People who set about change by changing everything all at once are out of this world dreamers of absolutely no competence whatsoever.
2
Have you no shame! Have you no understanding of what civilized means.
Does everything have to have a price!
Republicans : they send your children to die in wars to protect the very people running the very corporations who are ripping the fabric of society for MORE. More what? More trickle down lathered in the hyperbole of capitalism for a few to be so wealthy as to become gods of copyright and patents.
We in Ontario Canada pay a 400.00 ‘tax’ on our annual taxes to share the burden and make sure we are all covered.
14
Republicans just want people to die young so they don't have to spend money on Social Security and Medicare, even though that money belongs to the people that paid for those programs. It continues to astound me that republican voters are so brain washed by hate, racism and fear that they constantly vote against their own best interest.
11
Memo to Middle Class
From: GOP
Finally, your toast.
4
Republicans of today are the most immoral Americans in our history. Every policy they support is immoral, every politician they elect is immoral, and every vote their supporters provide is immoral. I am aghast that there are 60 million people in this country that have such evil in their hearts.
12
I saw the clip of Senate Democrats blindsided by an addition to end the Obamacare mandate. Clearly Republicans are desperately devious, willing to resort to any measure to reward their donors, as admitted by one of their own members.
This tax plan -- crafted in secrecy in an undemocratic fashion. Outside of regular order, as Senator McCain complained.
Shame on Republicans. Took too long to denounce a sexual predator. One of the senators was seen yesterday running down steps saying he'd vote for the sex offender before electing a democrat.
Their president just embarrassed us on the world stage and he, his family, and his Goldman Sachs cabinet will all benefit from this tax plan, knowing they'll blow up the deficit. And pretending this is a bill to benefit the middle class. How callous and foolish.
13
Cowards all; maybe even traitors to the Constitution. And calling Moore unfit to serve in the senate( as he is, of course); well, it seems there is very little morality most of the repubs in those lofty halls have to exhibit to be elected these days. And for DJT to call John McCain a "loser" is below contempt for a person who enjoyed five deferments while he was out making dishonest loot while "losers" like the senator were putting their lives on the line on a daily basis. If it were not such a serious mess we find ourselves in, Mark Twain would be having a field day with this repub gang.
1
Cowards all, indeed. The nerve. They would take away healthcare for millions to get a tax cut.
This bill is not just a massive transfer of wealth to the wealthy. It’s an ugly, dangerous insult to the majority of Americans. Shame on the GOP for even thinking about doing this. Shame. Shame. Shame.
12
This is good news for all those that would like to CHOOSE whether or not they wish to purchase health insurance in this FREE country! I celebrate this news!
1
Removing the mandate will make health insurance more expensive and so people who are struggling to pay the rent and heat and food bills will have the freedom to "choose" not to be insured just like most people "choose" not to own a private island in the tropics.
2
If you have no health insurance and you're dying, will you go to the ER?
Of course you will, and all on the taxpayer's dime. So much for our freedom, we don't get to choose if we want to pay for the fact that you have no insurance.
So now they're going to be taking away funding for healthcare for the poor and middle class to pay for tax cuts for the rich. The Republican party is truly shameless.
7
I understood when GOP elected officials tried to overturn ACA, to change the law. But aren't these public servants sworn to uphold written/existing laws? And isn't the ACA one of them? How is torpedoing the law of the land legal?
3
Thank you GOP for freeing me from any concern or kinship I may have felt for the people of Trump's America. I now know I should only look out for me and mine. It's such a relief. I couldn't have done it without you.
8
Another shell game/confidence trick which has nothing to do with the greater good of all
8
Once again maybe Christmas will come early to our donor class -they are in such need of a few billion more and those middle class poor folks just need to get a great job with a company plan and pays a few million a year in salary.!!! Oh God I have slipped into the republican alternate reality where right is wrong and wrong is right Help me !!!
7
The swamp gets deeper and darker daily for Americans who aren't wealthy. Trump and the Republicans are focused on corporations, Wall Street, and their wealthy donors and friends. Soon most of us posting here will have either no health insurance or vastly inadequate health insurance--including Medicare and Medicaid. Most of us posting here will see our tax bills go up and up. More and more of our income or pensions will end up with the government to cover tax cuts for the wealthy and businesses. I know that my one Senator, Sherrod Brown, will not only vote against this bill he will fight it. My other Senator, Rob Portman, will be vague in public but he'll vote for this bill. My Congressman, Warren Davidson, votes to the tune of the most conservative GOPers in the House. He's in favor of this bill I'm sure. Contacting either Portman or Davidson would be a waste of time and effort. Both put party over country. Which is really where we are isn't it? The Republicans are Republicans first and representatives of their fellow Americans a distant second.
15
@ Meg: Even though it is a waste of my time to contact my two Republican senators, John Coryn and Ted Cruz, and my Republican congressman, Michael McFaul, who is as corrupt as the day is long in summertime, I still contact them. They at least need to be made aware of how they are displeasing their constituents. We are also working to unseat Cruz in the upcoming election. Unfortunately, the Democratic party has abandoned us and won't even help us find a candidate to field against McFaul, because his seat is so tightly gerrymandered. But we are still going to vote against him in the upcoming elections, anyway. We'll write in someone when the time comes. None of these guys have earned our votes, and we will make sure they know it in 2018.
1
For shame - really, the Republicans are so desperate to pass something that they no longer care what it is or how many people will be hurt. People who are more concerned about passing anything rather than the right thing need to go. They have lost sight of the goal of taking care of America - they are solely focused on retaining power. Sad.
9
A nation in a steep decline.
It was the baby boomer generation that brought down the greatest country the world has ever known.
All the generation's that follow us will look at our greed,stupidity, gullibility and lack of empathy with
disgust.
6
If only the boomers voted for Trump and the Republicans, Republicans would loose in a landslide.
If that's the case, then why are so many people trying to come here?
I guess your right. Baby Boomers went from being caring hippies to a generation that raised a generation that thinks about nothing but money. How did that happen? Ask Alex Keaton. We, those who had kids, cared to much for others & not enough for our own kids. We let them run wild, go to party schools & get diplomas that mean nothing. Then they found that spending others money was more fun than spending their own. Many became politicians, who care about no one but themselves. Yup, BB’s started out caring about the whole world. Except those dearest to us. Now they have children & those kids just want lots of money & even more HAPPYNESS! The BB’s should have all gone to Vietnam & died. Oh I am a BB. No kids though. If I had kids I would have raised them to be good citizens, do their duty, & help others. Unlike those you know.
It should be clear to all by now that the middle class is but an afterthought in this tax bill.
Eliminating the mandate will make insurance prices rise and 13 million would lose insurance because of cost.
All so the rich can gain a huge tax cut.
10
The G.iant O.il P.irates are a party of hatred that wins power by cultivating hatred and anger. Find solace in the fact that we "others" of like minds are peaceful and care about everyone. Whether the the mandate is repealed or not, society has learned the value of health care and that in and of itself is a great accomplishment. As cold as this may seem, those who decide not to have health coverage will probably die younger than us and that is just a function of natural selection. I find no joy in knowing that Republicans will die younger, but that is the way of the world.
3
This has less to do with good governance and more to do with removing any semblance of Obamas influence on our country.
Truly another new low for our country. We seem to be hitting them on a weekly basis under trump. This needs to stop.
8
Pretty obvious what is going on. The Republicans threw in the towel on updating the tax code as they could not agree on a plan within the Party and need Democratic votes for it to pass. That would require real negotiations, something they cannot allow. Now they can blame Obamacare for their failure to pass tax reform. Childish and unlikely to convince anyone but perhaps will play to some of their largest donors.
2
Among the definitions of "Wealthy" is:"people who have more money than they need". (AKA: "people who don't need tax cuts".)
Among the definitions of "politicians" is: folks who's livelihood depends on garnering donations from "people who don't need tax cuts".
Giving tax cuts to the wealthy strengthens the argument that "you now have even more money that you don't need, give some to me..." during fund raisers.
And if "feeding the beast" means that self-serving members of Congress leave 13 million people on the side of the road without health care - so what?
5
The Republicans seem to have forgotten that it is the abandoned middle class whom elected Trump - and the Congressional grass roots conservatives. All the politicians are still confused about who those people actually are. By golly if the Dems do not seize on this they are truly lost.
4
You can't have Universal coverage either private or public without a mandate unless you allow insurance companies or the government to deny coverage to sick people. The math doesn't work. Premiums must rise if only sick people buy and healthy people can opt out until they are sick.
Phase two of the Republican plan is to allow insurance companies to deny sick people coverage to reduce the cost of coverage and to cap maximum payouts.
Essentially this is about bankrupting sick citizens who will die a tortured death and leave their heirs debt so that people like Trump can leave their heirs a tax free estate.
7
"The groups, which included the American Medical Association and America’s Health Insurance Plans, wrote that “eliminating the individual mandate by itself likely will result in a significant increase in premiums, which would in turn substantially increase the number of uninsured Americans.”
The Republicans in the senate act like the people who voted for them only watch Fox news.
5
Maybe they can throw in some more restrictions on abortion, further defund planned parenthood, completely eliminate environmental protections, abolish the IRS, Christian Prayer in Public Schools, add subsides for coal, and something about a gun required in every home? Omnibus legislation appears the way to go. Who has time to read all this? Could it be any worse? What happened to tax reform? Let's call it the Everything the Right Has Ever Wanted Except Tax Reform Bill.
4
Americans are an illness away from bankruptcy, in general .
Everybody MUST have health insurance.
Even young people get sick , they are not invincible .
5
Who knew health care would be so complicated? Who knew tax reform would be so complicated? Who knew combining two really complicated things in one bill would make that bill and its chances of passing doubly complicated? Apparently, not the nitwits who are trying to force this shameful giveaway to the rich down our throats. Oh, and by the way, it's not really all that complicated. Pay more taxes, get more services. Among 35 developed countries, the United States ranks fourth from the bottom in total tax burden. Countries that collect more in taxes from their citizens, have better schools, better infrastructure, lower poverty rates, less income inequality, better health care systems and an overall better quality of life. In these countries, people are willing to pay the price necessary to achieve civil society. Surely, the people we have elected to govern us are not too dumb to figure this out. Are they?
7
It's difficult for me to see this as anything other than a massive theft of public wealth, to be given to the richest 1% in the country. I don't think it could be honestly explained as anything else. I'm mad that the GOP is selling this to America as freedom and fairness. I'm infuriated to see so many poor and middle class conservatives brainwashed into thinking this is actually going to make America prosperous -- that this is the due of those they have been led to believe are the real strivers and risk takers.
5
After failing to win the votes to repeal the ACA with their arguments we now have the Republicans choosing to govern and wage their class warfare by deceit.
Legislation by deceit. Legislation by trickery. Legislation by cowardice. Legislation by dishonesty. Legislation by lies.
This is what the GOP, under its new conservative and Trump identity, has sunk to.
6
Is there some reason presumably intelligent and informed NY Times reporters keep saying the Republican tax bill roughly doubles the standard deduction? Not so: the accurate description is that it combines the existing standard deduction (6350) and the existing personal exemption (4050). Together, for one person, they are today a reduction in taxable income of 10.4k. Under the Rep plan, that rises to 12k. A married couple with no children currently gets $20,100. For a single person with one dependent, the plan LOWERS the current reduction by 2,250. The same math applies to married couples: if they have two children, their reduction drops from $28.2k, to $24k. The more children they have, the more they lose. Various provisions modify these losses for those below a certain income level, and the two bills have conflicting rules about tax credits for families. These adjustments would not affect taxpayers in the 2nd to 20th percentiles of income. These taxpayers, especially in blue states, are the main target of the changes. It's really quite simple: there are two groups of people with enough money to fund the coming increase in Federal spending (due largely to aging baby boomers). 1) The 1%; 2) the 2-20th percentiles. The entire point of the Republican bill is to shift the burden from group #1 to group #2. Proof? Look at the chart in last week's Times about the effect on income groups.
1
The cognitive dissonance for republican voters must be positively painful. How can they continue to support a party that is not only on the least popular side of nearly every major issue, but is actively pushing for legislation and policy that will negatively impact the greatest number of average Americans socially and financially. And they're not even trying to hide it or couch it in cutesy, focus-grouped, Orwellian-Luntzian phraseology.
They're servicing their donors and rubbing your noses in it! Wake up republicans!!!
3
Republicans count on the ignorance of the American people. Their entire agenda depends on it. They con the people into voting against their own best interests and then the people complain when they have to pay more on their taxes and healthcare. If we don’t educate ourselves with the facts and get rid of the corruption in Congress, nothing will ever change. It will only get worse.
4
Trickledown Economics: How many times do we have to live with the damaging results of Congress passing laws with this fairytale backing them up? It doesn't work, never has, and never will. It's a lie to give all the benefits to the rich and pacify the middleclass and the poor. I would think by now the American people would be fed up with being the victims of the extreme rich and their paid-off representatives in Congress. The majority of American people are no longer represented by the majority structure of Congress and it’s way past time to do something about it!
6
Throwing the ill under the bus again. How can anyone with any moral do this? How can any Christians - supposedly committed to help the poor and sick among us - countenance this?
We will be back to the old days - with insurance out of reach for sick - very quickly.
Is the Republican Party really the party of me, me, me? Everyone in it for themselves? No responsibility or compassion for others? They should be ashamed.
5
Trump's need for revenge for Obama's satirical poke in the eye knows no bounds. He is determined to wipe out his predecessor's policies and in so doing, creating widespread collateral damage to individual citizens, the institutions of government, and respect for the rule of law.
What is truly amiss, however, is that the Republican Party is a co-conspirator to this mess.
4
This is not a bill to brighten the lines marking crosswalks or something. This is a MAJOR piece of legislation, affecting the economy and everyone in it, massively expanding the deficit, and now a repeal of the individual mandate has been thrown in haphazardly. Even more disturbing is the fact that, as far as I can tell, the repeal of the mandate - which will cause 13M people to lose coverage - was added to the bill simply because the GOP Senate candidate in Alabama is a pedophile. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
This is madness, and no way to run a country as great as ours. To Sens. Murkowski, Collins, McCain, Corker, Flake: we need you like never before to take a stand against this reckless behavior.
17
The repeal of the mandate doesn't cause a single person to lose coverage.
You're being intellectually lazy AND dishonest.
But...since you and the Democrats continue to push this angle, it's apparent the only response the R's can provide is to include a hidden provision that eliminates any and all Medicaid expansion $ granted to a state if the state doesn't require a state mandate for their own residents to buy health insurance.
When CBO scores those #'s, it'll show that by eliminating the federal mandate, 25 million more people will have health insurance in the U.S.
Two can play this game.
This change-everything-all-at-once farce leaves no doubt that all claims of these Republican reactionaries to be "conservative" are bald-faced lies.
Whoever votes for this should lose their job in 2018.
13
This is really disgusting - or ridiculous. Being retired I follow the "political news" on Capital Hill more than I ever have. There is no way the average citizen has the time (interest?) to follow the gamesmanship that politicians (GOP) are playing with the Americans lives.
9
Someone needs to stop this insanity. The Republicans are moving our country backwards so quickly it is bound to end up in a ditch.
10
Most newspapers have a section called "Politics". They should change that name to "Government". Politics is the antithesis of Government.
5
Politics is the only lawful process we have to negotiate the master social contract all our private contracts rest upon.
The fact that it has become a playground for village idiots is a logical result of the profound dishonesty of public policy negotiation in the US.
I guess we'll see if John McCain is true to his previous reluctance to blow up the ACA on a party line vote and his statements about needing to return to regular order in the Senate for major legislation. Or will he revert to being his old GOP rubber-stamp persona and cave in this time?
7
This is a "tax proposal" like the "healthcare" legislation was a healthcare proposal. What both were/are are a means to rob the poor to pay the already rich, while "culling the herd" of "life unworthy of life," that is, by malign neglect, denying the possibility of healthcare to the poor, people of color, the elderly, and LGBTQ people--Americans all.
It turns the Constitutional preamble of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of justice" into empty words, indeed.
And, indeed, the victim classes are as large as those of genocides of yore, but without the expense of roundups, firing squads, building and staffing murder factories, and transporting the victims there. The "Tea Party" activists yelling out at a GOP presidential debate in 2012 stated it loudly and clearly: "Let them die!"
6
Sorry, it is up to the individual to procure "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" not the government. There's nothing in the Constitution that says the government supplies this or that. The government creates the conditions for you to do so, democracy, capitalism, protection from foes. That's it. Now, if you WANT the government to supply that, Cuba and North Korea are great destinations. Problem is, I don't think many people there are very happy.
Sorry, but how dumb does McConnell and the GOP in the Senate think we are? This is yet another attempt to destroy Obamacare. I guess the 70 some votes and the 3 recent attempts to repeal it wasn't enough. So we will "slip" this into a totally unrelated bill to get it done. Now after the tax bill fails (which I think it should) then they will "slip" something like this into the fund the military bill.
2
McConnell is more than enabled enough to consider the whole US a nation of abject gluttons for punishment.
That's just repeal, no replace.
2
There is a logical fallacy in the argumentation by the GOP. Ending the individual mandate would save money now, in 2017, but that's just because the individual mandate is still in the process of being phased in. Over time, and in summary, the individual mandate would _make_ money. It's a tax! The SCOTUS itself said so! No tax ever loses the government money!
By cutting it now the GOP tries to tarnish Obamacare even more. "See, we cut the individual mandate and that saved money!". Yeah, in 2017 it did, but not in 2020, 2030, 2040 and so on. It's very shortsighted, but politically it's a brilliant move, "...kill them while they're still young..." style. Disgusting!
The second part of these "adjustments" is even more cynical. They know pretty much for sure that they won't be in power in 2025, not after DJT, Roy Moore and all the other stuff going on. You can bet your piggy bank that _in_ 2025 they are going to claim the end of the cuts to be a "tax hike" by the Democrats and will demand that they'd be made permanent. We've been there before, over and over, with Reagan's cut and GWB's cuts, and it never adds up, because the situation has changed since the cuts were enacted (mostly towards immanent financial doom).
Guys and gals, they are playing you for suckers! Sorry to have to hear if from a guy on the other side of the pond, but sometimes distance can give you 20/20 eyesight...
3
The individual mandate has to raise enough money to compensate hospitals for patching up these people who believe nothing bad can happen to them, when bad does happen to them.
I am in complete support of ditching the Obamacare Mandate as part of the proposal by the Senate for tax reform; the mandate from the outset was a tax, and the Supreme Court confirmed that in 2010. In fact its more than a tax, its a way to coerce people in purchasing something that may not truly need, and by by that I mean health insurance that does not necessary apply to their individual needs. Indeed Obama attempted to socialize health care under the ACA, but many patriots resisted, ignored the mandate and paid the abhorrent tax in protest. But now that will come to an end, as it should, as it must! And another brick in the Obama legacy, may I say tragedy, will be removed, and cast upon the dust heap of failed Marxist-Socialist utopia. Thank you.
1
I understand you don't want to be forced to do anything you don't want to do, or to pay more taxes, but if you want to lower insurance premiums - I'm not sure you do, actually - you have to understand how insurance works. Reduce the pool of insured, pay more. Increase the pool of insured, pay less. Simple. So I can accept that some people don't want to lower premiums, that's a personal choice. But I just cannot understand folks who complain about premiums and then rail against the individual mandate. It's not a government "thing", it's an insurance 'thing.'
2
“There I said it!”
Using insurance companies to collect taxes is par for the course of dishonesty in this festering morass of unequally protective laws.
All Trump knows is real estate. Did anyone expect anything less from him, really?
3
Just as powerful individuals are being held accountable for their cruel and abusive actions towards those more vulnerable, children, women and men, so to is the GOP being brought to light.
Come on America! Stand up to this cruel abuse of power. Bury these people in all upcoming elections. Permanently.
4
If the snake is let out of it's cage, in passing this legislation; the truth will be told of the primary objective of this administration. Is it possible that the emotional support that people have of this administration can now be questioned?
2
"They would set all of their tax cuts for individuals to expire at the end of 2025, to comply with a procedural requirement. Their deep cut in the corporate tax rate would remain permanent."
I think in retail sales this is known as bait and switch. The arrangement switches suddenly from, "Hey, we're getting a tax cut" to "Hey, THEY got a tax cut."
Well, we're pretty dumb and we'll probably buy it.
4
The fact that Mitch McConnell can call the shots for the whole country leaves no doubt how passive Americans are.
Only the GOP could make the Healthcare Insurance racket look like heroes by comparison.
4
Just plain evil are what these folks of the GOP Congress are. They not just satisfied with giving huge welfare checks to the rich and corporations disguised as tax cuts, but they are going to also make even more uninsured people in the process with their cuts in health care. And who do you think will pay for the rich getting more...YOU, ME, and the Middle Class. Wait until they are done with this, then next will be Medicare, Medicaid, and...Social Security. Yes, they are not done taking more from those that can least afford it, not by a long shot. Then again, they must pay back those that stuffed millions into their pockets. Yeah, government for sale, bribery if you really think about.
3
President Obama, with a year left in his term was told by Mitch McConnell that the President's nominee for the Supreme Court will not be given a hearing or a vote because, well, a twice-elected President with a year left in his term shouldn't be allowed to nominate someone for the Court.
McConnell has been told by the people of Alabama (or if you prefer, Alabama's Republicans) that they fired Luther Strange who continues to sit in a seat he has been told he must vacate in a few weeks after the results of a special election will be known but, McConnell is working the calendar to make sure that Strange can vote as often as McConnell needs.
McConnell wears hypocrite without shame.
The Congress ( republicans that are in control of all 3 branches ) are one large death panel.
As well, they are going to enact tax cuts for themselves and charge you the taxpayer for the privilege.
4
The Republicans will strip down the ACA to the bare minimum, but will keep it around enough of it to kick it while it’s down and blame it for any future economic downturn caused by their policies... When trickle down fails again, guess who’ll get the blame, like the last time, the poor of course
1
Republicans want to do two things.
They want to repeal Affordable Care Act
They want cut taxes on the very wealthy
Neither of those policies make a scrap of sense UNLESS you inhabit the alternative reality created by...Republicans.
1
With the tax cuts set to expire at the end of 2025, I can look into my crystal ball and project the following headline in the New York Times sometime in December 2025...
"Republicans Accuse Democrats Of Wanting To Raise Taxes On The Middle Class"
And, guess what, the phony expiring tax cut passed in 2017 will become permanent.
3
It seems that ending the individual mandate will up the premiums paid by the elderly, the sick and those with pre-existing conditions. Why has no one mentioned this fact? Maybe because the Republicans inserted this clause at the last minute to avoid any discussion by those who will not benefit from the repeal of the individual mandate. Republicans are so sneaky in pushing this tax plan that they must have learned it from Trump who learned it from the mafia.
1
As of July of this year the repubs had attempted to repeal or gut the ACA at least 70 times since 2010, according to a Newsweek report.
http://www.newsweek.com/gop-health-care-bill-repeal-and-replace-70-faile...
It is self evident it was all political grandstanding, that they had no rational replacement. They were going to destroy Obamacare and throw tens of millions off coverage, because that's in effect what they promised those who mindlessly accept their never ending lies.
Today once again they want to destroy a specific and necessary feature of any pooled risk plan, that if enacted will throw 13 million off of health care, just so they can pay for tax cuts to the wealthy.
These cretens clearly have no intelligence, principles or decency, they obviously don't care about average people. Before jailing them, we should put them in stocks and pelt them with tomatoes.
Ironically remember drumpf admired the Bastille Day parade on his trip to Paris. (He wanted his own.) With his ignorance he probably has no idea of the significance of Bastille Day. If they keep this up they may very well have their own. LET THEM EAT CAKE.
3
The difference between Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump is finally clear: We've see there's a lower limit to how low Mitch will go, but not how far Trump will go.
Mitch draws the line at supporting a verified child molester and attempted racist when he threatens to be part of McConnell's GOP Senate Caucus. If he's simply running for President, he could hold his nose and accept that.
Other than that? He stole a SCOTUS seat, changed filibuster rules on the fly (thanks to Harry Reid's blunder), tried every which way to force an ACA repeal through around the 60 vote rule, and now is trying again to slip it in on the tax giveaway bill for foreign corporations.
Will Collins, Murkowsky, McCain, and Paul stand up against a bill that has things they like and things they voted against again? The first 3 voted down repeal, and Paul voted against expanding the deficit.
How low will Mitch go? Well, we know now that Moore is too far, and that's about it.
1
It's about time, what took the Republican so long when thier controlling both the House and the Senate!
Αmerica, that great beacon of upward mobility for the working man and woman everywhere, has become an oligarchy. Is it any wonder your police is now in possession of issued military-grade weapons?
1
Who are they kidding? Ending the mandate kills the Affordable Care Act that most Americans now want to keep.
1
This is clearly meant to be a fatal blow causing death of the ACA by the slow exsanguination of healthy members from the individual insurance markets. Millions will suffer poor health, and many will suffer medical bankruptcy or die unnecessarily. And all for the sake of massive tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations (also wealth people). The murderous hate of Trump and Congressional Republicans is only exceeded by their enormous greed.
2
As a republican, I can only say, "My God, when does this madness stop."
3
The Republican party has sunk itself into a quagmire of white supremacy, money and making for the rich. The new tax law will deprive the sick and dying of health care except at the emergency room. Then We middle class and poor citizens will pay for their last care during their last moments. Conservatives are not Christians. They are not human.
1
Trump really is going to rally a passionate populist uprising. To his surprise, it will be against his own administration. This is one more step, one more stumble too far. What he stands for will be shredded and thrown on the trash heap of history. Perhaps we needed this Ringmaster to show us what carnival like circus we are becoming so we can wake up, shake it off and get back to being a forward looking nation. I believe in us.
2
Why are Reoublicans so intent on hurting Americans? This is an act of domestic terrorism. How can they be proud to take healthcare away from 13 million people? How can they claim this tax package lowers the bill for the middle class when every independent audit firm says it will raise taxes on many?
These people are deplorable Terrorists
1
Have they no shame? No conscious? How can they be so desperate for their corporate campaign donations as to intentionally stab Americans in the back? We must have real campaign finance reform before we dissolve into a dictatorship.
1
Now we all should know what to do in 2018.
1
Health care reduction by stealth. Guess the Republicans learned nothing from their electoral losses this month. Sad. But we can slaughter them in 2018.
1
I just don't understand why the GOP thinks these major corporations with their trillions of dollars in off-shore accounts and their penchant for moving jobs overseas needs even more of our financial support. This tax bill gives new meaning to the term corporate welfare. What is so tragic about this - is that we are giving companies like Apple, Microsoft, and GE (who are hardly suffering from want of cash) our hard earned money, while we push more and more sick people, people who need health care, students, old people, the middle class, towards destitution and bankruptcy. Perhaps it is time to start boycotting the corporations who have not spoken out against this new tax plan.
173
This system of pure bribery has paid off well for these wealthy corporations ,thanks so much citizen's united.
1
Not only that - most of the TAXES are AVOIDED by offshore arrangements.
REPUBLICANS are ROBBING us blind while we work and are taxed like MULES. If the REPUBLICANS were really interested in the USA they would preventing that money from ever leaving before consider cutting corporate taxes.
2
So fiendish. First poison people with chemicals, pollutants, and unhealthy foods produced by some of the big corporations. Then when people become sickened from lifetime exposures, deny them affordable healthcare and give even more money to these corporations who indirectly or directly cause some of our major health problems; heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and obesity.
1
The secession to make permanent the tax cuts for corporations while destroying the ACA is exactly what Republicans stand for. They are tone deaf. Americans want improvement to the ACA. Destabilizing health care in America will be their legacy as well as their complacency in supporting trump the worst president in the history if the United States.
16
Of course they are going to try to get rid of the mandate. And along with getting rid of deductions for medical expenses, the GOP plan to help people move quickly from retirement to the grave will be realized. If you are unhealthy, maybe just old with attendant illnesses, it's your fault. Live with it - or not. The GOP does not care. If you go broke or lose your house to medical bills it really doesn't matter to them. The Koch Brothers have been satisfied and will donate to the GOP campaign coffers in 2018 so all is good with the world.
13
Wow, those are some massive middle-class tax cuts: 0.5%, even 1%. Pinch me.
Go ahead and do it, Republicans, health care and all, and watch your political fortunes just flourish.
9
Senators Collins, Murkowski, McCain, Corker, Flake (and any other Republicans with sufficient integrity): please keep the best interests of the country and its citizens foremost and vote against this indefensible measure.
9
Perhaps not since 1789 in Paris has a regime been so nakedly and deliberately abusive of its people. The absolute and utter transparency of a scheme to destroy the health insurance of millions of vulnerable Americans in order to transfer billions of dollars into the already overstuffed pockets of corporate managers and one-per centers is unconscionable. If ballots can no longer be effective, then perhaps it is time to think about tumbrels rolling down Constitution Avenue as they once did in the streets of Paris. Or as Dickens suggested in “A Tale of Two Cities,” “Sow the seed of rapacious license and oppression over again and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind.”
5
I dropped my health insurance because of the sheer fact it is all a scam. After paying $1000 per month for the "GOLD" plan, then getting over $1000 in bills after going to the ER is just NOT affordable. I would rather put $1000 a month in the bank and pay my medical bills as needed. I think that is more affordable.
1
A standard heart bypass can cost in the range of $100k.
Start saving up.
1
Until it isn't and you suffer a medical emergency and bankruptcy.
2
The Congress ( republicans that are in control of all 3 branches ) are one large death panel.
As well, they are going to enact tax cuts for themselves and charge you the taxpayer for the privilege.
12
So when people drop their health insurance and wind up in the emergency room, others will pay for it. Is that fair? This nightmare can disappear with universal health care.
6
We already pay for it -- in New York it's called the New York patient surcharge which is tacked on to your hospital bill. It provides hospitals with money to take care of people without insurance. So, thanks once again, GOP. Taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich is your true goal.
Ok, so we sacrifice the health and well being of millions so the one percent can get a tax break. This is not only insane, but immoral. Without large participation, the premiums will rise greatly which is just what the GOP wants. Go ahead, pass it and let's get a Democratic Senate and House with a start on single payer, cost controls and negotiations for drug pricing.
This "trickle down" nonsense has been disproved time and time again and the same cast of Republicans keep bringing it back. Enough.
7
We can thank the Roberts “Court” for this nightmare. I️ can only just imagine what this “session” will look like now that the corporate plutocracy has their man in place. Citizens United has destroyed what little was left of our democracy. I️ used to think Margaret Atwood’s “Oryx and Crake,” was great sci-fi. I️ now see the book as prophetic.
3
Sooooo ... the GO/Tea is going to keep "tax cuts" for Corporations and the 1% permanent while phasing out and limiting the tax cuts for the 99%? Further they're going to "gut" Obamacare to pay for this and nothing, nothing (cheaper, better) to replace it?
Well ... when the GO/Tea gets replaced by Progressives the next few years ... we'll see how "permanent" those permanent tax cuts for the wealthy fare.
3
Yours is the first comment I read after reading this article. I hope your assessment of the American people understanding what has been done to them if the Republicans get their way with this tax bill. Up to now voters don't understand they are the cause of the problems this nation continues to face and if they don't get involved, their lives and the lives of their children will be bleak.
Americans for far to long seem to have that death wish and must conclude they can't pray it away, a difficult task ahead.
3
Glad to see it. Hubris never works out all that well. It'll be a bridge too far, and doom the tax cuts for the 1% bill. Two terrible pieces of legislation with one desperate stone.
1
As I cannot afford the approximately 350 a month for what I heard was lousy coverage with a high deductible I would be thrilled. The idea of paying for someone elses insurance with my tax money does not sit well with me. However if I was a communist I suppose it would. Just saying!
Insurance works because we're all paying for someone else. That someone else just might be you.
But who's going to pay for the investigations into Hilary? We can't have Republicans in office without at least one multi-million dollar investigation into the Hilary administration.
Getting rid of trump should be a mandate. Never allowing more than three terms should be a mandate. Making Fox News register as a foreign agent should be a mandate. Stopping arms sales should be a mandate. The list is long as Everest is tall.
5
The individual mandate is punitive! It pales in comparison to all the other assaults that are already inflicted on the American people by Republicans. Just wait and see.
2
When are we all going to step back and ask ourselves if there isn't some thing rotten baked into our system of governance, as currently practiced in America? We have systemic moral corruption fueled by systemic financial corruption. Until we get the money out of politics, we are inching closer each day to the eventual failure of this form of governance in America. A country simply cannot expect to be a good place for the majority of its citizens to live when governmental policy is bought and sold every single day.
A right thinking country would of course wish for all its citizens to have decent health care. Especially if that country was wealthy enough to do so without meaningful sacrifice to other essential services. A country whose governance was not directed by campaign contributions to the governing would have decent universal healthcare as a matter of course. Indeed, most advanced countries on the planet do.
But once you create permanent political elite whose continued employment things on contributions of obscenely large amounts of money, you have baked moral corruption into the system. And you will get policy reflective of that corruption. That is where America is today and the future of any country built on this political foundation is doomed to fail. It is pre-ordained because the very people with the power to fix this problem are the people who benefit from it and who lack the moral fiber to look beyond their own selfish and partisan concerns.
4
This is a great deal for the wealthy, hedge fund owners and large corporation.
And a terrible deal for everyone else. Some face the double whammy of less deductions for medical expense and loss of health care insurance. And then everyone gets screwed in 2025.
10
Unless we wish to saddle of children with increasing national debt (beyond the approaching $20T) ANY tax plan changes should include a 2/3 decade plan to reduce the national debt downward towards zero.
Easy? No way. Time to stop living on the federal credit card.
1
And the worst offenders have been the Republicans who have lied repeatedly in this and previous administrations and during campaigns that they would lower the federal indebtedness...in fact with this unnecessary tax plan they are increasing it substantially. And I say to you, Why are you not holding the perpetrators responsible? That has to be step 1. I hope this fails with its disgusting inclusion of Obamacare under a false issue, tax reform.
It's easy to reduce the debt. Raise taxes on the mega rich and corporations.
It is stupid for s to borrow when it can tax. Borrowing only makes bankers richer.
But the Republicans are both cutting taxes on the super rich, and borrowing $1.7 trillion to pay for it. That comes to over $4,500 For each citizen, $18,000 for a family of four, to give tax cuts to corporate shareholders, with the 1% owning 75% of all shares.
They are taking from the withers to give to the rich.
At least the GOP is consistent - their health care bill was a tax plan.
7
The sordid and simplistic math of the evolving tax reform bill is rapidly moving from bad to awful. The toxic equation is:
Tax Cuts for Big Corporations + Tax Cuts for the Wealthy =
Eliminating Deductions for SALT + Real Estate Taxes + the Individual Mandate
This represents a "massive" shift and increase in "income inequality" from the lower- and middle-class to the wealthiest. It is an economic poison pill for those least able to afford it which will, as in the very recent past, end up throwing the entire consumer-based economy into recession. In the end, everyone will be hurt by this unnecessary misguided legislative theft as profits are taken instead of corporate investments and most of the benefits will end up, as before, offshore in hidden bank accounts, cheap labor, and tax-advantaged industrial investment.
11
The mid-term elections, and probably the next Presidential election as well, will be decided during the passage of this tax bill. There is both opportunity and risk in regards to increasing or destroying a political base. Both parties should beware.
3
Many commenters believe repeal of the individual mandate will hurt Republicans, but they couldn't be more mistaken. It was the individual mandate and its regressive punitive tax that aroused the anger of lower working class people all across the country and led them to abandon the Democratic Party in droves last November. They like subsidized healthcare- they don't like taxes: really not so hard to understand. Repeal of the individual mandate and its hated tax will prove very popular for Republicans.
1
The tax was a hundred bucks. Come on. Citizens were mislead and lied to . But then that seems to be the playbook of the States, lie and then justify the theft and war as bid’ness.
What you say is not true. The ACA, with the individual mandate, passed in early 2010. Barack Obama was reelected in 2012. At that time the Tea Party was spreading fear about the ACA. If your argument were true people would have come out in "droves" and voted out Obama. They did not. People came out in droves because they believe Trump will bring back long-last factory jobs that any sensible person knows will never come back. Both Trump and his daughter still makes some of their products in China yet he was on an international tour lecturing world leaders about "America first." I'm sure if you can read Chinese you will see they were laughing at Trump. There are companies that make their products there and are still profitable. Take Brooklyn. for example, we have had a number of entrepreneurs who opened beer breweries. They're still in business. People are obviously willing to pay what they ask for their beer. Most likely Trump will leave office and his products will still be made in China.
Is that so? Why don't you tell that to the thousands of tax payers who stormed republican lawmaker's offices and town halls demanding that our representatives keep, defend and improve the ACA, including the individual mandate.
When something has to be rushed through with limited discussion, comment or analysis you can be SURE you're not the one getting the good deal out of it. From what I've read and the analyses I've seen, working class taxpayers will take it on the chin to ensure Trump and his ilk don't have to contribute to the society from which they so richly benefit. Even if a couple households here and there see a brief reduction remember that money has to come from some public good which will no longer be funded AND it will expire, leaving us all (except the top) much less well off. Act in haste, repent in leisure. I encourage everyone to oppose this plan. It takes from those who can least afford it and gives to those who don't need it.
7
Yes, ObamaCare was debated through am entire presidential race, and then in over a year of hearings. Then Republicans spent eight years screaming that it "passed in the dead of night!"
Now they keep trying to jam bills through in a few weeks, constantly changing the details so no one knows what it really means.
Republicans expand hypocrisy to new heights every day.
I can only imagine the possibilities if the Republicans worked equally hard to help the poor and middle class. I hope we survive until midterm elections.
4
PLEASE! This is NOT a "middle class" tax cut! Do not call it that. 80% immediately goes to the top 1% and the deficits will be paid by the REAL middle class on the state level for the foreseeable future. There is no possible way the middle class will be spared from making up the deficits unless we are prepared to see the poor literally starving on street corners.
5
Yes, $1.5 trillion dollars of debt divided by 325 million citizens is $4,600 per citizen, $18,000 for a family of four.
We are each going into $4,600 of debt to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.
And they call this populism?
2
I share Senator McCain's sentiment that the Congress must return to regular order, meaning hearings and open PUBLIC debate about the provisions and consequences of its proposals. The current approach is not likely to produce good policy. When both the American Medical Association and America's Health Insurance Plans are against the provisions to eliminate the mandate, that should be the beginning of debate, not the end.
10
It would appear that about 14 million citizens will have to do the heavy lifting (from their soon to be defunct health packages) to pay for the $(numerical) tax benefits which will accrue to the 1%.
3
Why has no one in Congress dared to mention an increase in the tax on capital gains? Most of us must work for wages which are taxed at higher rates than the investments that the wealthy live on.
1
Yes true tax reform would make capital gains taxable at the same rate as actually working for a living.
Our economy is stagnating because we keep taking money from workers who are also the consumers, reducing demand.
According to the Fed, we are at full employment, but 20% of capital is idle (80% capital utilization). This is because capital is under taxed, not over taxed.
Now we are going to borrow $4,6000 per citizen to give another tax cut to owners of capital.
Corporations, which are only a small percent of businesses will have there nominal tax rate cut from 35% to 20%, but their average effective tax rate is only about 15%, so their new effective tax rate will be around 0%.
And no corporate loopholes are targeted by this cut.
Actual tax reform would be an amendment to the constitution that eliminates all loopholes and taxes all income at the same rate, with brackets for different amounts of income..
This is just a tax cut for the super rich. Notice how global corporate mass media keeps saying this is a middle class tax cut that MUST PASS this year. Fake News was not invented by the alt right. They just take it to new levels.
The Supreme Court saved the mandate by declaring it a tax. So wouldn't that put it within reach of the tax legislation? You can't have it both ways.
1
Yes it is a tax. They agree ending the mandate, which is income for the federal government, and claiming that saves money. They are actually cutting subsidies. That ha where the savings congress from.
Meanwhile if no one is mandated to have insurance, but you can get poor existing illness covered, there is no reason to have insurance until you first sick. Of course, if everyone who is healthy cancels their insurance the entire insurance industry collapses. Insurance only works if healthy people last into the system.
But tax cuts for the rich are more important.
Maybe now we insurance "orphans" in individual plans will have more options. Obamacare has been a disaster for us. My second insurer just left that market. Hunting for a third. Any relief welcomed.
Yes we need a public option.
Low income people pay fines rather than buy insurance. They've run the numbers and realize it's cheaper to do this. This demonstrates that math is not dead in our schools. These people understand they can buy into the system when they need it and take this risk. The Republican Repeal and Replace addressed this problem by penalizing the 'just-in-time' health insurance buyers. Sadly the Republican plan wasn't pure enough for all Republicans some of whom just want to yank out the rug from Obamacare.
GOP is now in an impossible position of trying to please the oligarchs who fund them and look like they care about the working class that votes for them. And of course, some great tax breaks for commercial real estate investors are thrown to calm the monster so he will sign.
2
Once upon a time:
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” (This quote comes from Emma Lazarus’ sonnet).
Under Trump and the GOP:
Give me your rich, your 1%, yearning to make surrogates of the masses to subjugate them!
25
What a dumpster fire! A text book example of how NOT to draft legislation. Do we still live in a Democracy???
All to achieve the shiny goal in the sky of Permanent Tax Cuts to the Rich & Powerful. For the rest of us a Temporary tax cut (maybe, if you have no kids) that is immediately wiped out by an increase in insurance premiums. Don't think you are immune if you have insurance thru an employer. We all pay more when the uninsured rate goes up. Employers have been passing you an increasing amount of the cost for years.
The only hope is a Massive Tsunami sweeping out the GOP in 2018. They are doing a superb job of writing the political ads against them. You just can't make up this much Stupid!
21
Yes, we live in a democracy which we are in grave danger of losing if the American people don't take immediate action to abolish all the corruption in Congress.
1
The Republicans write the political ads against them, but the Democrats never run them.
For example where was the ad that showed two minutes of clips of Trump saying "you're fired!" Wasn't that the most obvious political ad ever? But Democrats never ran it.
Notice how global corporate mass media keeps saying, "Republicans have to pass this tax reform this year!" No they don't! They could pass sane legislation that is actually good for workers.
Fake News was not invented by the alt right. They just take it to new extremes.
So, they will get rid of the mandate, get rid of subsidies so those of us who don't get them pay more, and get rid of the medical tax deduction for us that helps us buy insurance if we are between 50 and 65? Stupid is as stupid does.....
25
I still cannot understand why the Dems don't offer THEIR version of what real tax reform would look look under their leadership. Then voters will be able to compare plans rather than go along with this Republican nonsense for lack of a better alternative.
28
Democrats have offered the outlines of tax reform.
Since the Democrats are the minority party, they have no authorityy to propose alternative legislation in Congress.
1
I understand they cannot propose legislation in Congress. We need them to propose and publicise a specific alternative to the American people and start a debate over the differences to expose this "tax reform" travesty.
Frankly, I think the best we can hope for is to see the Republican hodgepodge of a bill killed on the floor of the Senate. The country will be better off with a return to the status quo until a better quality Congress, D's or R's is elected.
Are democrats out pushing their version of a tax reform? I'm a news addict and I haven't seen any of them doing that.
Being in the minority never stopped Republicans from pushing for tax cuts day in day out for fifty years.
The Democrats are so incompetent at moving public opinion it is hard to believe they are this bad by accident.
Chuck Schumer should be on TV every night saying, raise the rates on capital gains, but he gets his money from hedge funds.
A short time before the failed Graham-Cassidy Bill was introduced, Graham and other R's were literally called on the carpet by super donor Sheldon Adelson, and possibly the Kochs and Mercers, and ordered to deliver on ACA repeal and 'tax reform', or 2018 money would be given to primary challengers. Since the most important thing in the world is for these pols to keep their seats, we saw Lindsay Graham desperately dancing on the ends of his puppet strings trying to hustle his abomination of a bill through to please the masters. Our country is basically being run by real life equivalents of the Simpson's Mr. Burns.
18
Did the Senate add healthcare reform as a poison pill? They know the American public won't support this; they don't have enough of a majority; so they are performing a kabuki dance of sound and fury and not much else.
5
I hope so.
Isn't it ironic that in their efforts to give tax cuts to their donors that the Republican Party turns out to be the real life "Death Panel". Who votes for these incorrigible people?
18
These twits clearly use different math than we mere mortals. My health insurance premium is over one thousand five hundred dollars per month. I do not qualify for subsidies. If a tax cut were equal to the amount I must spend on health insurance, perhaps it would make sense. But screaming "tax cuts" does not change the financial straits that I and many others in my situation find ourselves. These people in Congress do not represent their constituents. They represent themselves and their donors exclusively. Pitiful.
21
There is an election coming up in 2018. Make sure you vote. Make sure your friends vote. Vote for YOUR best interests this time -
Webster offers a simple definition for evil: “...arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct.” And, every time Republicans pull off these legislative slights of hand, I am actually awed by their brilliantly evil ways.
While “establishment” Republicans can denounce Roy Moore, Manafort, Bannon and even Trump for the evil they do, the “establishment” Republicans join them in their own brands of evil.
Holding up a Supreme Court nomination isn’t sexual... Making deals with foreign governments to improve election chances may only be bad conduct. Telling lies to improve chances of getting a job isn’t really the same type of bad character as grabbing women... flying around the world on pleasure trips at tax-payers expense may only be bad conduct; doesn’t look evil.
None of this collective behavior is evil because the religious right hasn’t objected to the Party’s over-all behavior. But, when added all up, the net result is that the whole party is doing separate but equivalent evil.
9
it is becoming blatantly apparent that the leaders of the Failure and Ignorance Party are determined to undermine working families by redistributing tax dollars to their wealthy donors.It is truly amazing how little time and thought has been put in by this band of grifters on such an important matter as they impose their brand of failure on the country.Looks like we're all going to Kansas.
12
Not to worry...I’m sure the Republican senators will offer their thoughts and prayers to the uninsured poor and middle class who need health care
24
Why can't people cut to the chase and see this for what it actually is. The Trillions in tax theft is, and has been, the main goal of the Trump Presidency. If achieved Trump will gladly leave office and chalk it up as a win. As the plan goes, most people will be offered a temporary pittance in exchange to look the other way while America is fleeced while Putin smiles. The Trumps and their ilk come away with Billions as America still struggles with the last tax giveaway to the rich. Nobody seems to realize this is also a shift of burden paying the financing of "giveaways" on to the shoulders of us working stiffs while strapping government for decades. This is going on as Trump dismantles our government maybe to beyond repair.
12
Where is my Republican Party? Personal responsibility? Fiscal responsibility? I cannot condone this GOP, and I do not connect with the Democratic Party either. I think many women feel lost between the two.
4
Maybe try to just be a human being! No party affiliation and perhaps you will know exactly where you stand.
A brief look at all Fox News related properties (including Fox News, Wall Street Journal, and New York Post) indicates that there is limited to no reporting on this subject (a couple of stories in WSJ). As millions of Americans are relying on solely these streams of information, you get your answer as to the Murdoch empire (and Republican) priorities. In spite of the righteous indignation in this comment section, it is also the likely reason that this tax bill succeeds in going through Congress, in spite of all that is wrong with it. It is up to everyone reading this, and those they care about, to raise your voices to your elected officials and say this is unacceptable now and especially in 2018.
3
"The mandate 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. "
...........
How can a true blue Republican argue with the math of that proposition!...Boot 13 million Americans from decent health care (but note they will still have the benefit of Emergency Room care) and collect $300 billion that can be given to our suffering corporations (with the Dow at record highs) and the poor top .1 percenters who would otherwise pay a small pittance in estate taxes (on tremendous amounts of wealth that likely would NOT OTHERWISE be taxed at all via stepped up basis on inheritance from unrecognized capital gains; e.g., stocks that have greatly appreciated over the past decade).
Soon the rich will have all the money in the world and they will have finally WON the grand game and it will be over for the rest of us...until we get to watch the camel try to negotiate a path through the eye of the needle.
3
This is what class warfare looks like when opening salvos are fired by the people who already have all the power.
4
At a certain point...mob will rule!
Good by rural hospitals. Your reimbursements have just been thrown out the window by your government leaders.
9
They get rid of the mandate, people poor into the ERs across the country for their sniffles, everyone's premiums go up to cover the cost of emergency room care for people with no insurance. Billionaires make out. Ah, American style capitalism.
6
[[Senate to Use Tax Plan to Repeal Health Care Mandate]]
Good.
Get all those low income people ravaged by opioid addiction and obesity and heart disease OFF any kind of health coverage. Get rid of dental coverage, pre natal, can certainly screenings...every man for himself.
Let the "free market" decide who gets coverage. (Spoiler alert! It will be the young and healthy.
I didn't vote for Trump...god help those who did and who see him promises fulfilled.
4
This article provides solid analysis that demonstrates the inequities in the proposed legislation which is being heralded as a 'middle class tax cut.' The NYT should also specifically focus on how both the Senate and House bills will increase the national debt in the next decade.
During the Obama years, Republicans constantly complained about the rising debt. The biggest expenses involve the military budget and Social Security payments. When Obama removed troops from Afghanistan, the budget deficit dropped. Republicans, however, complained that he weakened the military.
It's clear that most Republicans follow an anti-Democrat agenda designed to empower the rich; they have little regard for the middle class. I would hope that the NYT will expose this hypocrisy in subsequent articles that focus on the right wing's failure to address budgetary matters.
8
Shut down the government. Shut it down. Corporate tax cuts permanent, but individual cuts expire? Require insurers to insure people with pre-existing conditions but don't require people to have health insurance? That's a death spiral right there and will spell the end of affordable health insurance.
If this monstrosity makes it to a Senate vote, the entire Democratic caucus should walk out in protest. Who is for this bill other than the bought off politicians??
7
Why is it that tacking on a clause to a bill that is so clearly detrimental to the health and welfare of Americans a way of securing more Republican votes rather than fewer?
When, if ever, will Americans realize that the GOP is the party of the 1%?
7
Republican math: We saved 300 billion.
Real math: Everyone's healthcare costs go up by the $300 billion no longer covered by the Federal Government. Additional costs at the system also likely as insurance markets further destabilize.
GOP Bonus Gift: 10 million or more citizens become uninsured again.
5
The Supreme Court had it wrong, corporations are not people. In GOP America, corporations are MORE than people.
Corporations are permanent, but we will die. From lack of health care...which corporations don't need.
The GOP is doing nothing amiss here...just serving the "people" they truly represent.
7
The letter from the CBO said that the cuts in 2018 would total $136 billion, including slashing the budget to core programs like Medicare.
5
Hope it passes. The government has no right to force me to buy health insurance to pay for someone else's healthcare. I prefer to save my money and pay for my own medical bills out of my savings when I get sick.
It is so nice to see someone with the milk of human kindness. May God watch over you.
Good luck
What about the good?
To Quote:
"They also have made a calculated gamble to help speed their bill to passage on a party-line vote: Republicans revealed late Tuesday THEY WOULD SET ALL OF THEIR TAX CUTS FOR INDIVIDUALS TO EXPIRE AT THE END OF 2025, to comply with a procedural requirement. Their deep cut in the corporate tax rate would remain permanent."
A gift for the corporations and the wealthy at the expense of everyone else!! A temporary smoke screen attempting to hide the true agenda!
4
"Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society" - Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
That pretty well sums it up, for me and the Republicans both. I want to live in a civilized society. They don't.
8
It’s hard for decent, honest working folk to get their heads around the motivation behind this tax plan. That’s because it’s uglier and more selfish than most of us are usually willing to think. But it’s clear. It is about the complete concentration of power in the hands of the few. It’s the crystallization of new, and permanent class, the Oligarchs. It’s happened before, where the aristocracy paid nothing in taxes and the peasants paid all. (Think 18th Century France). And it’s happening now - if we let it. We have to end it now, while we can because the longer a concentration of power like this last, the uglier it ends.
8
They are Republicans for a reason. If ever there was a reason to uphold the 2nd amendment it would be to protect the citizens of the United States from Republicans. Quite the irony that...
4
The market already smells money. Mini pools of insurance, Block chain insurance, maybe amazon will sell insurance, some offshore holding companies where we can hide our assets and just declare oueselves indigent, or consider what my extended family is considering, self insuring ourselves. 20 of us are running the numbers. We are also looking at hospital care costs in countries like Cuba and Mexico. The fact that even if you have insurance and actually use it your life becomes a battle with the insurance company to actually cover your claim!!
claims.
5
In short, in seven short years, everyone else will be paying a lot more taxes so corporations, hedge fund managers, investors/speculators, trust fund kids and other rich people who don't make their living from working can have even more money.
What does Mitch McConnell and his ilk get from completely destroying what's left of the middle class in America?
5
Fighting a Class War with healthcare for low-income Americans to buoy the wealth of the idle rich is disgraceful. First, it will result in thirteen million Americans without the healthcare they need. Second, it will result in higher premiums for the fifteen million Americans who remain in the healthcare marketplace. Third, this has nothing to do with the tax plan's stated purpose -- trickle-down economics -- and everything to do with its disguised purpose -- trickle-up economics.
5
The Congressional Republicans are trying to kill two birds with one stone, and I think this time they just might get the bill through to Trump's desk. Who is responsible? All the Democratic voters who failed to turn out in 2016. Oh, and the people who voted for Jill Stein in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin (your votes, if cast for Clinton, would have kept Trump out of the White House).
5
Unless and until Donald John Trump discloses his personal and family income tax returns and business records to the American people there should be no new legislative income tax scam.
Unless and until Donald John Trump discloses his mental and physical medicals records including diagnosis and medications to the American people there should be no new legislative health care scam.
The income tax scheme provides deductions, credits, subsidies and lower tax rates. But only for certain industries, individuals, sources of income, business entity structures, transactions, contracts and securities favored by lobbyists buying our elected and selected executive and legislative representatives. Unless you have a lobbyist you are on the menu for tax "reform". You are not a diner.
The health care scam makes Americans buy private health care insurance with no meaningful controls on the cost of hospital stays, drugs, medical devices and medical care. There is no public option.
6
Cynicism simply drips from this proposal. Oh, I get a $1,000 tax cut so that I can pay most of the increase in my healthcare. Goody.
As an aside, we all must pay auto insurance if we want the privilege of driving. We all have to have home insurance if we want a mortgage. How did we ever let the right succeed in defining the necessity of healthcare insurance as such a terrible infringement of our rights? We need better spokespeople.
3
This Republican robbery of the middle class to pay off their donors is truly radical and turns the notion of insurance on its head. Why pay for automobile insurance? If you ever have a minor or major accident, or are the victim of one, you can simply pay the full cost of the car or the repair at that time and then pay, as someone with a "preexisting accident condition, a high premium in case it ever happens again. All this does is put the young and the poor on the emergency room care or early death plan, and everyone else who is not wealthy on bankruptcy or added to the state and federal deficit. For people with employer plans, they are vulnerable to ever rising prices. I feel like we are fighting the Civil War again with the people's money. People need to vote the Republican charlatans out of office in 2018; vote your pocketbook. Even with gerrymandering, they can be beat.
1
"Mandate repeal could also help secure the votes of the most conservative senators, enabling lawmakers to pass the bill along party lines."
We'll see how real the complaints are about Trump are among certain GOP senators. The hypocrites will be exposed. McCain, Collins, and Murkowski will have to choose between the health of millions and MONEY.
The entire GOP fraudulent enterprise will be revealed finally, and then maybe the rubes will wake up.
3
Congressional Republicans only govern to fatten their sugar daddies’ coffers.
Why not complete forensic accounting to see which of the mercenary republicans have expanded their bank accounts at the expense of millions of Americans.
Over 50% of Republicans receive $$ millions from fat cat republican donors while directing their legislative powers on their respective legislative committees to favor the industries they oversee.
Pay to play governance, as energized by Republican Supreme Court justices and their deadly ruling in “Citizens United”, has enabled Republicans to expand their power in Congress and their wallets while destroying the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans and of our democratic neighbors around the world.
FOLLOW THE MONEY.
2
The Republicans don't know what they are doing. I've had the conversation with my conservative friends and they move the conversation back to Obama. I don't want my friends to change the conversation and go back to Obama. We all know what happened with Obama. Obama did what he could do and we didn't get a single payer system. We got a hybrid health care plan because the insurance companies have ultimate power. So, that subject has been beaten to death.
But the conversation now is Do The Republicans Know What They Are Doing? I believe they do not. Not in any category of government. Nothing.
2
The repeal of Obama Care was always about taxes. Remember, the ACA is a market based, federally subsidized program, with most of the subsidy being paid by a tax on the wealthy. Essentially it's a GOP plan.
But the GOP received their marching orders from the 1% to do whatever they wanted with health care, as long as the wealthy didn't have to pay for it.
The dilemma was that without the tax revenue subsidy the ACA falls apart because the insurance company's would loose their guaranteed profits. Some GOP members of congress pulled back because their constituents let them know that they weren't ready to loose their health care. That's why the initial votes failed.
Now the plan is to make it all but impossible for GOP members to serve two masters. Their constituents want health coverage, even the flawed version represented by the ACA. But the folks who write the big campaign checks want a payback and they expect it in the form of massive tax cuts.
This plan is as devious as it is obvious. The real costs of the tax cuts for the wealthy will be born by the middle class as they see their health premiums go up.
There are a dozen other places in the tax bill where the tax burden is simply shifted to the middle class. And we all know that when the deficit balloons, and it will, the social service cuts will be devastating. The only response to these vampires is with silver chalices, wolf balm and bright sunlight. They will suck the blood out of all of us to serve the 1%.
2
How much more perversity and cruelty can we endure? These numbers, percentages and calculations are meaningless.
There should be protests all over the country!
When will the working class be brave and stop the engines that gives these monsters their ride on their tired backs?
2
Let's hope that the addition of provisions on health care will kill this bill that is a give away to the wealthy in this country. The Republican bill is the very definition of class warfare.
3
I feel like a stranger in a strange world.
We are being robbed of living our lives enjoying relatively good health.
This GOP continues to highjack my life and that of my fellow human beings.
These empty vessels, these heartless and greedy souls would not have a dime to put in their pocket if it were not for the labor of we, the majority.
How in the world did we get here? How do we make this stop?
The only action we have left is our vote and even that is becoming a fading thought. gerrymandering
How did we get here?
4
When I wake up and read what the REPUBLICANS are doing to STEAL from most of us to give to themselves (very rich <1%) there is NO THANKSGIVING!
2
While Nero fiddled, Rome burns. As someone who has experienced both systems I can safely say the so-called single payer system (known elsewhere as universal healthcare) is the right solution. It's simpler, it's cheaper, it's far more transparent, and allows the country and its people to focus on other more productive and positive issues.
237
It would free medical providers to concentrate on delivering healthcare services than being distracted from the burdens of running a small business, spending hours on the phone fighting with insurance companies, etc. The Republicans like to bandy up arguments about "death squad" but the real ones are the insurance company coverage deniers and the administrators of cash strapped Medicaid programs.
Everyone needs to take a deep breath. The end of the mandate is not the end of health insurance. There are 7 million households/individuals who paid fines last year to IRS for not having health insurance, who stand to benefit from the end to the mandate. Those who say that insurance companies will deny insurance to those with pre-existing conditions -- that is not the case everywhere. In California companies cannot deny coverage due to a pre-existing condition or not cover these, and other states can institute similar requirements.
The best away to avoid people gaming the system and buying insurance only after they're sick is to institute a waiting period of say six months. This will drastically reduce the number of people willing to go without insurance.
5
Forcing Americans to buy insurance for health care that they cannot afford to access because of high out-of-pocket costs is the greatest scam perpetrated by democrats yet.
They should just be honest and admit their interest lies in growing the subsidized Medicaid market. They've yet to address what's happened to everyone else.
1
The Republicans in Congress are blatantly attempting to worsen the wellbeing of millions of Americans right before our eyes. Where is Robin Hood when we need him? Our government is broken. Gifting corporations and billionaires won't fix it.
23
This is really great. Let the Republicans keep driving towards the cliff. One year to go and we will be done with Republican majorities in Congress.
12
Too late. You'll be done with a judiciary that subordinates faith to reason.
I am against and always have been against the insurance mandate and I think it drives all medical prices up, it is yet another subsidy to artificially high drug and medical services prices. They should all be priced so that a person on the median salary can easily afford them without breaking the piggy bank, like in Europe and Eastern Europe where there is excellent care.
So while I am all for the repeal of the mandate which forces people to buy an overpriced product, I am against the new head of health services, who, I assume was a friend of Pence (and thus of the establishment) both from Indiana.
It is all a big fat farcical denial of the reality that the government has enlisted the insurance industry to be de facto tax collectors so Republicans can say that isn't a tax.
Republicans know full well there's no such thing as a temporary tax cut because the "expiration" becomes a tax hike that no politician can endorse.
7
Too bad Obama didn't let the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule.
If tax-cuts for the middle class are set to expire in 2025, why not let steep tax cuts for corporations expire as well? That would be the fair thing to do.
8
Whether it was Reagan's deregulation of Savings and Loans (and their subsequent crash and outrageous bailout); or Clinton's combo of Glass-Steagall deregulation and encouragement of lax lending standards (continued by Bush-Cheney), the selling out of housing policy to the National Association of Realtors and the National Association of Homebuilders has been disastrous. We thought the falsely turbo-charged housing growth in the 80's and the subsequent crash and taxpayer-funded bailout from the Savings and Loan mess was bad enough. But Clinton and Bush, Jr. decided the realtors and homebuilders should just keep writing policy and look at the housing bubble of early 2000's and then the 2008 crash and subsequent bailout then!
Has any industry more mastered the privatization of profits and socialization of losses more than the real estate developers? Let's hope that the Republicans have finally learned the lessons after the last 30 plus years & will stand strong against giving in to the National Association of Realtors. Amazing these real estate lobbies are still allowed to show their faces in Washington, DC.
2
@GRH: "Let's hope that the Republicans have finally learned the lessons after the last 30 plus years & will stand strong against giving in to the National Association of Realtors."
Thanks a lot for unilaterally stating that my way of life should end.
The GOP should figure how to fix problems without bankrupting people.
People like ME.
2
They should use the money going to tax cuts for the rich to pay for the elimination of the ACA tax mandate.
1
I’m not going to say this isn’t going to pass, because look at 2016 and see how predictions can end up, but this is a deal breaker, and enough R senators will likely break.
This addition is cover. 95% of republican congress (those running for re-election can say they were for the cuts, and the repeal of the mandate, while perpetually doing nothing legislatively. If their legislation never passes, they again say “well, if what I voted on would have been passed, things would have been MAGA, great!, but alas...” it’s easier to complain, than it is to govern.
Not that we can let up on contacting our congressman, because if it did pass, then we’re in a worse situation - actually seeing the Republican agenda through - which is bad for ALL of us, period.
2
There is nothing in the proposed tax reform that is good for the country. Nothing.
Allowing rich people, who are tremendous consumers of Government services, to pay less in taxes is a cynical move by the GOP to endear the donor class to the Party. Businesses are not going to invest the tax savings and saying that US businesses are the highest taxed in the world is a red herring; the US companies do not have the mandated expenses of environmental regulation, labor laws, universal healthcare, and extensive workers' rights that are found where the tax rates are lower.
And trickle down? How dare the GOP raise that flag at the rally point. How about bubble up? Why not tax the wealthy and the rich corporations the heaviest, invest the money in technology, infrastructure and debt reduction. Instead the hypocrites in the GOP feel maybe the debt load for our children and grandchildren is not high enough.
Vote the GOP OUT!
7
Why don't the Republicans just come out and say it, we are trying to give x trillions of dollars of corporate welfare to the richest corporations and people in the country and would like recommendations on how the average stiff will pay for it.
11
GOP also wants to attach ANWR drilling (drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve) to tax reform. Alaska senator Murkowski, who voted against Obamacare repeal, might be interested in that package. ANWR drilling would add revenue to the tax reform package, which could also coax fiscal hawks like Senator Bob Corker.
Call you reps!
2
If Mr Ryan and other republican leaders were honest, they would tell the public that the priority for this tax cut is to lower the corporate tax rate; and to make this seem to benefit working class people, a very small cut is to be made to select groups of middle class people. They will not make these facts known though. The reality of this plan, is to put millions of people out of the healthcare market in order to provide the money for their corporate tax cut that will overwhelmingly help the republican leaders real concern: to please their wealthy backers.
7
So the modest middle class tax break is paid for in part by repeal of a mandate that causes lower health insurance costs. So the middle class gets a tax break only to have their insurance rates rise. I doubt the end result of this is more money in the pockets of the middle class.
6
The mandate doesn't cause lower health insurance. Have you not noticed the cost of health insurance since Obamacare was enacted? Subsidies lower the costs of health insurance. For everyone else, it's a disaster.
1
Where are the Democrats? In the past the party would offer an alternative tax plan. They seem in their actions not to represent working labor but rich donors and lobbyists as well.
2
You do realize we don't have a majority vote right? We can fight all we want, but the crooks and liars over 51% get what they want. Vote them out as soon as possible.
The Senate thinks the American people can't read, or do not understand what they read. This explains why some of the Senators are trying to juggle tax cuts and Affordable Care Act at the same time, assuming no one is paying attention. But hey, that's OK, because there is very little We the People can do for now. But, beginning next year, and the years after, some of the Republican Senators will be looking for jobs, and be happy that Social Security and the ACA are still the law of the Land.
9
Last week Republicans said they would borrow $1.5 trillion ($150 billion a year) to cut taxes for billionaires. This week they discovered that the $1.5 trillion is not enough. They cannot cut billionaire taxes enough by borrowing $150 billion a year. They now want to eliminate health care subsidies to 13 million Americans and increase premiums to the rest of America so that the billionaires will have their massive tax cuts. They also want to insure that the billionaires get their tax cuts by making those tax cuts permanent while making any middle income tax cuts temporary.
We ordinary Americans will pay for the billionaire tax cuts in four ways: 1) we will service and repay the $150 billion borrowed each year for those tax cuts; 2) our health care insurance premiums will sky rocket; 3) 13 million of us will not have healthcare insurance; and 4) our minimal tax cuts will expire while those of billionaires are permanent.
Who do Republicans represent? They represent the billionaires. They don't care about us. How do we deal with Republicans? Don't vote for them for any office. They don't want debate. They have crafted their tax cuts behind closed doors without the input of Democrats or organizations representing ordinary Americans. They have met only with lobbyists representing the billionaires.
6
I am a strong advocate for a single-payer system
I also firmly believe as a nation we all need to invest in our health like a long-term financial investment. This means exercise, a good diet, not smoking etc. This advantegous for the individual and society...driving down medicare expenses for preventable conditions like Type II diabetes and heart disease.
Also as a family of four we paid around $15,000 per year for Obamacare with a $10,ooo deductible as my husband and I were gainfully self employed (but not rich, the insurance payments were a struggle) Without insurance we would have faced a $4,000 penalty which might have made financial sense but for the fear of a medical emergency.
3
Democrats are concerned about the Individual Insurance Market only when it suits them. The individual market is collateral damage of ACA. Where has Ms. McCaskill been for the last 5 years as premiums in the individual market soared at the same time that insurance companies cut benefits and choices.
"Democrats said the mandate repeal would underwrite tax cuts for the rich at the expense of people who buy insurance on the individual market. “The people this is going to hit are middle-class people that ostensibly this whole bill was supposed to be about helping,” said Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri and a member of the Finance Committee."
Where have all these people now complaining about a $200 tax increase been as insurance premiums and out-of-pockets have increased by $1,000's?
The criticism against these tax proposals are blatant partisanship. If democrats were so concerned about $100 in someone's pocket, they never would have allowed Obamacare to continue after they saw what it did to the non-subsidized payers.
So corporations can be day traders and only pay 20% taxes on profits?
1
The corporate tax rate would be permanent. Until a truly fiscally responsible democratic executive and legislative administration makes it right again. Reagan did the same thing. The deficit exploded. Harding, Coolidge and Hoover stewarded the first, "Trickle down economics." The worst depression in American history was the result. Indeed, it affected the world and precipitated WWII.
3
My metro area of Wisconsin offers me 3 crummy plans. The 4th, formerly area's major provider, quit the area.
I am not on / part of ACA / receive no subsidy -- but only plans I can purchase flow through them. It's very confusing.
My premium will double from $775. to $1,500 -- per month, for just me.
I apologize to my husband daily this time of year, and several times a month all year, for the costs of me simply breathing -- no actual doctor visits or claims, not counting the deductible or out-of-pocket costs if needed (another $20k/yr) -- place on him / our budget in retirement.
But ... it's insurance against medical financial catastrophe. At least, I hope it's 'there' for me if I need it in a very expensive situation.
That would be a double whammy -- to find out that after all these $$, that am under-insured. Fingers crossed don't need, or don't get an ugly surprise.
The new-age pharmaceuticals are another post entirely ... who can possibly afford those?
(Would buy a supplement, but none are available to anyone under 65. At least that is what insurance agent tells me.)
I am not criticizing ACA - many aspects I am grateful for, as once it is entirely dismantled, I know I will be deemed 'uninsurable' - and still be facing several years to bridge to get to Medicare.
I only write this to illustrate some pretty breathtaking costs associated with health care & insurance.
It becomes very, very easy to start to question: how much is one life worth? Am I 'worth' it?
2
You are worth it.
I heartily approve and applaud Donald Trump for moving to end the oppressive mandate. If people want a plan that everyone pays into - take it out of real taxes with single payer. In the meantime, it's cruel and unfair to penalize people who can't afford insurance and use that money to pay for other people's insurance when the payer don't get anything for themselves. If you want to do this - do it the right way and stop pretending this mandate is something that it isn't. Bravo, Mr. Trump who deserves the full credit for this excellent move. It's a relief to see the government actually getting something accomplished, for a change.
The Democrats defending this disgraceful mandate after dragging through this mess of the ACA only reveal their hypocrisy more than ever before and seeing the same ones who refuse to get behind single payer while they're playing footsie with insurance and pharma. Obama was selected over Clinton in 08 in large part because he didn't support a mandate. It was one more thing voters were betrayed on in that bill. It's long past time for this mean-spirited measure to be off and for good. Most Americans oppose the mandate.
1
If the GOP cuts the individual mandate they should also cut the unfunded mandate that obligates hospitals to provide lifesaving emergent care regardless of ability to pay. In that scenario, those who are able to buy insurance but elect not to would have to take personal responsibility rather than sponge off those who contribute to the free care pool through taxes and insurance premiums.
1
People are just beginning to look at 2018 health exchange rates and about to discover just how "helpful" all this GOP posturing has been. I'm looking at a 32% jump in YoY premiums this morning. Thanks Trump, Ryan and McConnell.
7
It's sold as a tax cut bill. My guess is that Murkowski and Collins will both vote Yes, as will Corker and McCain. The bit about 13 million people losing health insurance is of little consequence. It's all about tax cuts for the richest.
1
So much for the repeal and replace mantra. This latest gimmick is just the repeal part without anything to replace the ACA, just one more reminder (if any was needed) that Trump’s word is not worth anything.
3
Want to use the nation's transportation infrastructure? Buy auto insurance.
Want to use the nation's health care infrastructure? Buy health insurance.
1
These are master strokes of legislative genius. Not only does the tax bill gut the Affordable Care Act, and potentially strip 13 million citizens of decent healthcare, but it also gives "tax cuts" to the middle class that will expire, thereby raising middle class taxes without blinking an eye. Corporations will, of course, be held harmless from these tax increases in 2025.
Republican Senator's must have chuckled as they came up with these perfect solutions to passing this bill. They hold the deficit within the set limits, and solve all kinds of political issues at the same time.
Of course, the middle class American worker will be stuck with worse, more expensive and less available healthcare, and they will face higher taxes in the near future, but finally, the Senate will have done something. That's a win, isn't it?
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Of course, the GOP has made it clear about their intent: CEO's are the most excited, we have to get our donors off our backs, say goodbye to money if we do not pass this bill --all GOP government quotes.
Notice who is left out of this? Almost the entire electorate.
Let me spell this out for Republicans: if you sabotage the ACA, instead of attempting to fix it, then once Democrats get total control of the Congress, we will push simultaneously for single-payer and elimination of the filibuster (since Republicans will almost assuredly attempt to block any effort toward single payer with the filibuster).
A self-employed single friend of mine too young for Medicare, with preexisting conditions, wrote me the other night to report that his insurance premium will go up next year from $761 to $1,000 a month.
What good will this piddling tax cut do him?
Imagine what his premium will be once Republicans further destabilize the HC system by eliminating the mandate?
The GOP must have a political death wish. They must really, really want to go the way of the Whigs and the Federalists.
33
And if they remove the medical tax deduction, those of us the same boat as your friend will really be mad.
It was pretty much clear since beginning that the Republican tax plan was nothing but a mischievous move to roll back the people centric social security and welfare measures, suck money and resources from such programmes and redeploy it to benefit the rich through permanent tax cuts. A clever theft plan of transfering public resources to further enrich the idle wealthy class.
170
Its been ever so, since about 1972.
The idle wealthy class as you say PAY most of the taxes, if this is okay with a guy from India? The poor pay nothing and the middle class pay little. The wealthy deserve a break. What do you want, the wealthy to flee the US and go hang out in India and pay taxes there?
Now that it's a healthcare bill, It won't pass, like the last attempts. Collins, Murkowski and McCain have no reason to change their minds now. Senator Jeff Flake is leaving the Senate and won't want to repeat the mistake he made voting for the last Senate ACA repealer.
67
You give Jeff Flake way too much credit. He votes with his Republican colleagues almost 100% of the time. His talk is just... talk. I'm still waiting for his actions to catch up to the rhetoric.
1
I certainly hope you're right but with this ruthless and unscrupulous congress anything is possible. Trump has his eye on the same goal -- tax cuts for the rich -- but he's so inept that he can't get his gears to mesh with the criminals' in congress.
well, don't count on anything with this crew of "mavericks"
Taxes for the middle class will increase in seven years - Merry Christmas from the Scrooges! No healthcare and no money - and jobs? The future of the country looks bleaker than ever! No one with any sense believes Trump and his minions - this is welfare for the wealthy. Will any Republican Senators have the courage to vote against this hoax?
119
Don't count on it. The whole bunch - Democrats (where is a leader there?) and Republicans are spineless. They're all afraid to lose what they have and they'll hold onto power with a death grip. We need a hero and a third party. That's what I keep hoping will happen because the situation we have now is hopeless. I think the whole country needs an intervention!
The Republicans are out of their minds if the think any tax bill like this will pass. Injecting Obamacare into the equation is like running a marathon with a six pack
under each arm. What are the Republicans going to do when their "reform" has an approval rate of 19%.
79
Get re-electing because 1) voters don't care or pay attention because they think it's too complicated, 2) they'll get maybe 40 bucks of a break and think they won something, 3) they've heard for years that the ACA is bad and with the cowardly silence of the Democratic party believe that one too, and 4) the GOP will dangle some issue like "they'll come for your guns," or some religious or disguised racial issue to it.
2
Wish I could be as optimistic about the fate of the 'new' repugnican wealth care bill.
Thank you. Please do this! Let me say I'm a Democrat, a liberal. But financially, mandatory insurance is killing me. I had to cancel it, because I couldn't afford the monthly payments (I'm self-employed). So I'll have to pay a super hefty fine to the government for not having health insurance! That is ridiculous.
I liked President Obama, a lot, but forcing me to buy insurance was super bad.
10
Yeah, the rest of us taxpayers who have health insurance are happy to pay for your health problems when you go to the hospital and expect service for free because you couldn't bother to buy insurance. Thanks.
174
Your problem should be fixed. No one has ever claimed the ACA was perfect as is. It's a major piece of legislation, like Social Security. And, like Social Security, it is in need to tweaking, not destruction.
4
I don't really understand any of this, all I know is mandatory insurance would cost me more than going to the E.R. with no insurance and paying the tax fine.
2
Axing the mandate does not really mean you get to keep the save $. After axing many deductibles you could still receive a tax hike.
33
I fear a destabilized health care insurance market if Obamacare is dissolved and bare-bones healthcare plans are the only real affordable options for average Americans.
53
The Republicans don't believe they can pass their "great" tax bill without tacking on an unrelated promise to the people they believe are 45's base. And they couldn't eliminate the mandate without attaching it to a tax bill. Two wrongs don't make a right.
39
Trump’s base will suffer too. Too bad they don’t read.
Making the health care system even worse, hurting people even more, will undo the Republicans. They will not be able to blame this on anyone else. People act out when they're hurt. That's why we have Trump. Nothing will undo the Republicans the way this will.
39
Is it true that the average millionaire will save $58,000 in taxes under the GOP plan, while the average family earning $58,000 will save $1,000 (unless they're from NY, in which case they'll save less, or nothing)? And that we’ll reduce health care for low-income people to finance the tax cuts for the millionaires? And if that’s so, why isn’t the DNC running ads to let the folks know, before it’s too late? Fewer Russians, more facts.
99
Why?
The Dems Make Sure Not to Do What's Sufficient Unto the Day Because since the seventies the Dems are most always implicated in the crooked capitalism within the corporate state
So - where do the savings to govt spending come from should the mandate to have health insurance be repealed? Fewer people opting for govt subsidized insurance ... lowering Medicaid enrollment? I don’t understand the connection.
11
It saves the government money because Obamacare is subsidized by the government. No individual mandate = fewer people buying insurance on the exchanges = less spent on government subsidies, freeing up all that cash to give to big corporations.
1
There isn't a connection. The GOP want to make good on their repeal Obamacare at all costs. Costs? Yes, you and I will have greater costs.
This may help republicans gain some votes, but they wil lose a some too, because of it. Amazing how they keep managing to make their tax legislation even less likely to pass by complicating it with health care reform. We can see now, that their health care reform plan was plainly about gutting the ACA for millions of Americans so the billionaires can have their tax cuts.
28
Would be interesting to see if this approach were struck down by the courts -- if we still had an independent judicial system. But without one, this is just a "learning experience" illustration of what a political party can do in the highly-evolved twisted mess that we have become as a nation.
18
The big Republican Christmas present to Americans: Enslave them even further into poverty and make them beholden to the billionaires.
People, when will you wake up?
They are screwing us in front of our very own eyes!!! How thick do you have to be not to see that?!
134
This isn't governance, this is a coup. And the only way to fight a coup is to recognize them for the criminals they really are.
Next stop: debtors prison for those of us "serfs" who can't pay ASAP.
Managerial Economics 101. The way to avoid high taxes is to use corporate profits to buy up other companies to raise the stock price. You sell the stock and make capital gains taxed at a much lower rate. You also need to layoff employees and outsource to foreign countries to boost stock prices. The uber rich pay little taxes today, and everyone else get screwed. This is why the rich love the Democrats.
8
You have all points so wrong that it isn't even worth my effort to attempt to correct them.
You were doing good right up until your last sentence. You seem confused.
13 million more middle and working class Americans who will get screwed by their tax "plan." And that doesn't count the number who's premiums will soar, but who will keep insurance. And then they'll blame on the ACA when the ACA without a mandate is not the ACA. And many of their rank and file members will buy it all hook, line, and sinker
Deplorable.
52
The use of the word "problems" in your intro and second graph is a problem. Obamacare is not a problem. I guess you were trying to be cute. But cuteness is no replacement for accuracy.
18
My insurance cost through Obamacare already increased 17% from 2017 to 2018, for a plan that kept the same name and got worse, and that's before this bill even passed. I'm a healthy 40 year old woman with no preexisting conditions, living in the bluest state possible and seeing this country going to hell with these sorry excuses for human beings that somehow get such a large portion of Americans to vote for them. Incomprehensible.
51
Amen, Ellie!
These "sorry excuses for human beings" will continue to multiply and eventually lead to the destruction of our once great nation, completely from within.
Only a forgiving God can save our nation.
Just you wait to see costs skyrocket with this “plan.”
Well, that's ONE addition that likely will lock up at least 50 senate votes.
Not dumb.
2
So proud to destroy the prospects of proper health care for millions.
Sad.
38
Lew:
Don't remain so frozen in a time-warp. It's time to do healthcare right in America. ObamaCare was never that, it was just the best Pelosi could do.
3
So DO come up with a "right" healthcare plan BEFORE shutting down the basic insurance that millions of Americans got thanks to the ACA. Eight years saying no to the ACA and no viable replacement ideas? Now that's a time-warp!
2
So, this whole tax plan was not only a ruse to enrich the very richest among us and punish the middle class, but also to kill Obamacare. Kill 2 birds with 1 stone! The same Republicans who voted against the health care repeal will, hopefully, vote against this stinker as well. It all shows just how much power the most conservative members of the GOP, the ones who love Roy Moore and are helping to fill the swamp with lobbyists and billionaires, really exert. We can only hope that each one of them will be soundly defeated at the polls. So troubling how vicious politics has become, with us against them, blue vs. red, Black Lives Matter vs. the KKK. Things will only get worse, lest we have some sort of insurrection.
49
GOP also wants to attach ANWR drilling (drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve) to tax reform. Alaska senator Murkowski, who voted against Obamacare repeal, might be interested in that package. ANWR drilling would add revenue to the tax reform package, which could also coax fiscal hawks like Senator Bob Corker.
First- don’t buy dem rhetoric. It’s good for middle class if you just did one moments calculation
Second. Maybe what we need is more honesty. That means media and politicians and politfact etc
Anymore it’s not what the plan is, it’s who proposed it.
Democrats vote in bloc vs anything republican and the media carries their luggage.
For 6-8 years voting no was “ bigoted obstruction “. Now what is it?
There's been a fair amount of opinion recently that John McCain is actually a great guy, calling out Trump´s cozying up to Russia; lat´s see how he votes on this hideous tax bill.
76
Then this phony tax plan should be made to fail as well. The best way to keep this from happening if for those in office who do not want Obamacare to be destroyed should refuse to vote for the tax plan. Simple...thwart both of these.
26
The GOP has become the gravest threat to american values, economic stability and progress. They are selling out our country to the rich and multinationals and expanding the rampant inequality in this country while at the same time decimating healthcare markets that benefit the working poor.
We have a no nothing con man president who enriches himself while in office and who each day is proven to have colluded with the Russians. We now have a man running for the senate supported by the Alabama GOP, who is being accused of the sexual molestation of a 14 year old and the attempted rape of a 16 year old.
Our country is being destroyed not by foreign enemies but by those whose greed and desire for power overrules morality, decency and the welfare of the country.
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As I've repeatedly written in these columns we are committing national suicide.
43
President Clinton would have vetoed this legislation. The next time someone tells you that Democrats and Republicans are all alike, punch them in the nose. And, for the love of God, vote in November 2018.
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She'd have been a lousy president with a Republican congress vexing her at every turn. She wasn't a popular, and therefore not a good candidate. Any party official who boosted her was as out of touch as she was. Some people like FDR were rich but everybody knew he was with the common man. The Clintons has greased their palms every step of the way. Alone, she might have accomplished great things; but Bubba drug her into the world he inhabited.
BYW. I'm no supporter but I believe Clinton when he says he didn't inhale, In 1967, I was there a lot when people smoked weed for the first time. If they didn't smoke cigarettes, they almost always thought they were inhaling when the smoke was only going into their mouths. Of course, most people kept trying. but I can see the uber-ambitious Clinton not doing it again. Of course the right doesn't care about accuracy, just making people feel that have been looked down on in some way.
OMG--we are going to have to get out in the streets with our pitchforks and torches once again to combat this zombie provision, that will once again throw tens of millions out of health care.
The Republicans will never give up their greedy desire to torture the American people in order to give billions more to the richest Americans--and mostly to their oligarch (d)owners, who have threatened to cut off the spigots if they don't eke out this disgusting bill.
The GOP is rubbing its hands with glee at the prospect of once again threatening the ACA while still stealing from their own constituents.
55
I hope the undue 'haste' by the GOP to pass massive tax cuts isn't because they want to pull a 'fast' one on the American public. Only fools 'rush' in...
6
They are not pulling a fast one, it is like someone telling you they are going to shoot you in the head and you hand them the bullets. There are millions of people in this country to ignorant to be governed, voting against your own best way of life.
Save $300 billion or is it transfer $300 billion to the offshore tax evader supporters of Republican proxy thieves?
I could care less for fraction of 13 million that loses their health care and continue to support and vote Republican. At least they deserve what they have chosen. It is the rest of the 13 million citizens that will suffer and die all to give $300 billion to those who don't need it and already have too much.
Radical Republican Extremists need to be voted out ASAP.
25
So now the death of health care in the US begins in earnest. This bill, it it passes, will end decades of valiant efforts to fix the system. If this Republican tax bill doesn't kill it off, I don't know what will.(See comment from Shar for details). I am tempted to blame this on Putin, but I can't. This is other Americans doing it to all of us who are not fortunate enough to have employer or government access.
7
The Senate plan to end health care known as Obamacare through the so-called tax break is scandalous and goes against putting the rich ahead of all.. its bankrupt of any moral compass and will harm many millions in a time
when healing is more important.. division is the republican credo.. this will turn the political tide towards democratic house and senate in 2018~ thus will be the only one term president and will ignite a call to a new patriotism and humanism that will become the guiding light of future generations to come.
7
So the GOP started the year with a health care bill that was really about cutting taxes, and they will end the year with a tax-cut bill that is really about ending health care.
Did I get that right? SMH ...
20
Poor, poor, pitiful Republicans. They just do not know when to call a halt to the craziness. The hole they've dug has become a trench and still they keep digging. It bears the question: how long will it take till this once Grand Old Party collapses in on itself? There seems to be no sanity left in them. The few that do exhibit any semblance of reason are either leaving office or are suffering from brain cancer and not long for this world. As for the others, well, where are they? Those profiles in courage. The one Republican Diogenes has yet to find. So far, there are none to come to the aid of party and country. What a solemn epitaph for a party which once exclaimed with pride the inclusion of Abraham Lincoln, a man who would no longer be welcomed nor recognized by its current members.
DD
Manhattan
13
McConnell/Ryan’s wacko billionaire puppet masters really want those tax cuts and McConnell/Ryan are feeling the tug on their strings.
8
In all these proposals, there is not even a pretense of some common good or even an intent to improve the plight of the middle class. This is beyond shameful. Most would lament at the abomination in the white house, but do not forget his republican enablers in the house and the senate. They are the original sinners and they demonstrated again and again that they have no principles. Stop buying their snake oil America, for our country's sake. Please.
20
The Republicans are promoting all their goals now because people will forget by next year's election, unless others keep reminding the public.
1
I know this from a fact that many people who are on Medicaid for over 30 years of which Medicaid payed for all their baby delivers which was good enough for them.
However once they get cancer or they need a heart surgery either a family member or some charity organization would go out and buy the most expensive private Health Insurance plan available on the free market; in the same way cutting into long waiting line.
People with pre-existing medical conditions on Medicaid are switching over to private health insurance only when needed are the prime cause of the sky racking high premiums. Obamacare has destroyed the entire health insurance market.
Another important point to rebuff the lie from the Democrats. If someone is born sick for example a down syndrome or with heart problems that Social Security Disability is always available for those born sick children!
1
One, there is no waiting line on medicaid. No one in the Oncology dept. is switching to private insurance. You think you know so much? You don't, I have stage 4 cancer and I deal with medicaid all the time. .
LOL. I know a woman who gets SSDI for her autistic kid-- a whopping $200 a month. You think that'll be enough to pay for a catastrophic illness, let alone lab-work or a doctor's visit?
My sister has a profoundly deaf daughter, who gets ZERO SSDI because "deafness isn't a real disability" according to the guidelines. No insurance coverage or being denied due to pre-existing condition = no hearing aids, no cochlear implants, no speech therapy.
Besides, if you think the Republicans don't want to obliterate SSDI, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
Exactly; the smart once are switching witching over to private health insurance when they have stage 4. Of course there are no lines for you because you are still stuck with a Medicaid doctor.
These continued attempts at passing some legislation, any legislation, so as to claim a victory at any expense to the people who rely the most on the government are truly horrifying. Yet, Republican government officials continue to be popular among the constituents they ultimately hurt the most. I can not comprehend how Republican voters continue to vote against their own interests. Keep in mind the states that depend most on healthcare are states in the 'Deep Red South'.
Making your voting decisions based on some perverse ideology and disgust for the other side is shocking, to say the least. Is the price for not letting the other side win really worth a sham of a healthcare system and letting corporations run amok with even higher profits that, even in the most optimistic scenarios, will never reach your pockets?
7
If I were young and healthy I'd want a simple policy that would pay all of my costs between $25,000 and $75,000. I figure paying the first $25,000 won't bankrupt me and anything over $75,000 is a lost cause. Keep it simple so I know the benefits and how it works, Keep it cheap, so it's a good buy, and I'm willing to pay for it. Forget bronze, silver, gold, and platinum. Too expensive, too complicated, and not addressing my needs. And forget the mandate because if you give me what I want, I'll buy it.
1
Let's look at how that $25k/$75k plan would work out.
Car hits you, you're injured badly. Hospital, anesthesia, internal surgeon, oral surgeon, eye surgeon, labs, imaging, physical therapy, maybe mental health professionals will basically say, "$25,000 now, please".
Whoops. Hidden damage found, you need hip and knee replacements. Lung surgery. You blow past $75,000.
They drag you out on the street and leave you to die? And that's OK with you and your family? Is that what you really want us to believe?
Maybe you'll be able to finance the expenses. Maybe you have to file bankruptcy. You'll still have years of medical expenses.
Look. The reason we buy insurance--on cars or houses--is so we don't risk financial catastrophe if something bad happens. That's why we're required to buy it in those cases.
And insurance enables you to take responsibility for yourself. If you run out of money, you sure aren't being responsible for yourself.
Health insurance: no difference. Nobody should be bankrupted (or dragged out of the hospital) if something bad happens to you.
18
Why must the Senate end Obamacare mandate in revised tax proposal? Just because the Republican wants to save $300 billion? Do they not think of the people before the government? What happen to the popular sovereignty and/or the promote the general welfare?
7
The GOP's leadership knows full well they are not going to win on taxes so by adding Obamacare they truly want to end their dismal legislative performance on a poor note? Perhaps they are telegraphing the desperation of their billionaire benefactors? Ultimately they all know Trump is already a lame duck.
5
Trickle up economics on the backs of the middle class, cuts in health care, and tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%.
What is wrong with the health care mandate? is it not better for our society to have health care coverage, creating a healthy society?
A win at any cost! Republican agenda, the race to the bottom.
13
Well, not to worry, the Republican party has us covered. Their comprehensive solution to the health care problems of America is just waiting for the demise of Obamacare. For reasons that may not be obvious to Americans who would really like not to fear bankruptcy when ever they go to the doctor, or for those who just don't even bother to go to the doctor because they can't afford it, it might be a leap of faith to assume that Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell are locked in on the ultimate health care solution, not just for America, but for all human kind. But if there is anything that today's Republican party has taught us it is that faith is the cornerstone of how to get elected.
2
This bill may become law, but it will deprive millions of people of affordable medical care. It will also send the stock market up. And it will put this country on the road to a dual economy similar to that in Mexico, where you have a small wealthy upper class and a large peasant economy.
11
If we are going to put our faith in the government, then we must look facts in the face. The obesity epidemic in this country leads to illness. This is proved out by government (and other) easily verifiable data. Instead of demanding our government provide healthcare to all, why don't we all work to end the obesity problem? Less people will get sick, less need to see doctors. No, it won't help those born with illnesses, it won't stop all need to go to the hospital, but fighting obesity will cut the doctor visits WAY down. Walk and bike instead of driving. Eat a salad instead of a pizza. Drink water instead of soda. Small changes that can have really positive results. Why not give it a try? If we are truly all in this together, each person (who is able...not those who are desperately ill, etc.) should try. That's an individual mandate that makes sense. It's all up to us - eat an apple instead of cake. Enjoy some time outdoors with your kids. Get up, move around. Again, if you are able...give it a shot. It might change your life for the better! :)
3
The condensed truth is that the wealthy individuals and corporations secretly "Donated" to Republican campaigns, the Republicans obliged the "Gesture" by reciprocating with a Tax Cut to the wealthy as thanks, and now after finding that "Money" works, they are appealing to everyone's greed which will apparently win them more power in the future. The public will rejoice at the repeal of the mandate until they die, which obviously will be sooner without health care and coverage to pay for it. Do you know why? The people won't want to spend "Their" money to get health care.
4
Great day for the shrinking middle class! People have no clue the damage the ACA have done to health industry.
Here are some points if you are a middle class earner in NYC after paying 30% income tax, $12,000 property tax, Bridge tolls and sales tax it’s impossible to have more than 2 kids and make a living.
But over 50% of all babies born are paid by Medicaid, pretty much the same people who have large families are on the taxpayer’s tough for food stamps and section 8 or public housing too.
Giving for citizen a free health insurance card is like giving out a free concert tickets and top performers are not showing up.
Here are two doctors I have used.
good Gastroenterology I used years ago took my private insurance in 2011; but now he charging $500 CASH for the first visit. Currently he doesn’t accept any insurance.
Last week I went to Dermatologist again $275 first visit. No insurance accepted.
To become a Doctor it takes 7 years of college, plus 2 years of hospital residency. If health insurance is free it’s not worth to spend 9-10 years of your best years of your life in college with thousands in student loans to receive a government type salary.
Top doctors are moving to Cash only! Nobody from America is traveling to Canada for surgery!
Americans will need to prioritize that buying Health Insurance is before a vacation in Disney Land, owning a car, or a Home. Still not enough to buy Health Insurance tell your spouse to look for a job or go back to college.
2
Yet... let's obliterate birth control and OBGYN coverage for women. I'm sure that'll cut back on the birth rate among the impoverished. I work in an environment where I encounter many pregnant women. Many of those who work full time in banks, social service agencies and cleaning services earn so little that they qualify for Medicaid-- why is that? Wells Fargo can't offer affordable coverage to bank tellers? Crothall, based in the UK, a mega-conglomerate, can't offer an affordable option for health coverage for it's full time employees?
Keep in mind that countries with universal coverage require their citizens to pay taxes, it's never "free".
compared to every advanced nation's healthcare system, even medicare comes up short because it is infected with for-profit private insurance. just read "medicare & you 2018", the 140 page manual. it is a complicated brochure that requires hours of study to attempt to get the care that you need. if you are sick and/or not able to navigate all of the options/plans, you die. medicare was a good start which the aca tried to improve upon, but the fact is that true single payer health care, which most other advanced nations adopted decades ago, is the most efficient, the fairest and the least expensive way to deliver health care to all citizens. the only reason why we don't have the most efficient and least expensive health care system is that the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry and all the other players in the medical industrial complex have bought off our government. our government does not work for most citizens. it works for private corporations.
11
Best comment.
I think if they try this they lose a few Republican votes, which is enough to sink it.
It will be just like the dueling ACA plans. Part of the Rs will say it goes to far and half will say it doesn't go far enough, and nothing will get passed.
Which works for me. If we're going to grow the deficit/debt we should do it by paying for much needed and much more important infrastructure improvements, which would create jobs without question and benefit every single person in the country. It's a matter of national security, too, when you consider the vulnerability of the grid, pipelines, and nuclear plants to terrorism, both physical and cyber.
Meanwhile Congress fiddles while Rome disintegrates.
5