The Senate tax bill is quietly targeting healthcare

Here's why the GOP tax plan is "repeal by another name"

Published December 3, 2017 7:00AM (EST)

Mitch McConnell (Getty/Saul Loeb)
Mitch McConnell (Getty/Saul Loeb)

The Senate tax plan proposed by Republicans will have devastating effects on the healthcare of millions of Americans. “This is a quiet but substantial attack on the cornerstone of the Affordable Care Act and is repeal by another name," said Jeremy Slevin, the associate director of advocacy for the Poverty to Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress.

I spoke with Slevin for an interview with Salon about the political implications of the Senate's proposed bill. The bill will repeal the individual mandate, which the Congressional Budget Office has estimated will lead to the loss of insurance for 13 million people.

Slevin says to expect insurers to leave the market and for premiums to go up. In addition, the huge tax breaks in the plan will raise the federal deficit by $1.4 trillion, which Slevin says will cause Medicare to come under fire as Republicans look to make up for the losses by cutting entitlements.

“I don’t think the actual distribution of these tax cuts is being properly covered," Slevin says of media coverage, despite the dramatic impacts the law could have.

Watch the video above to hear more about why this move is one Republicans repeatedly employ to create cuts to programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

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By Alyona Minkovski

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