Tag: GOP tax cuts for the rich rather than health care for the middle class

The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax

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ProPublica has obtained a vast cache of IRS information showing how billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett pay little in income tax compared to their massive wealth — sometimes, even nothing.

In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes.

Michael Bloomberg managed to do the same in recent years. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn did it twice. George Soros paid no federal income tax three years in a row.

ProPublica has obtained a vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years. The data provides an unprecedented look inside the financial lives of America’s titans, including Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg. It shows not just their income and taxes, but also their investments, stock trades, gambling winnings and even the results of audits. Continue reading.

Republican tax bill fuels anxiety across the nation’s healthcare system

The following article by Noam N. Levey was posted on the Los Angeles Times website December 18, 2017:

A surgical team operates on a Medicaid patient at the University of Arizona Medical Center in Tucson. Across the country, many medical providers fear tax cuts will force major cuts to the healthcare safety net. (Los Angeles Times

Doctors, hospitals, patient advocates and others who work in the nation’s healthcare system are growing increasingly alarmed at the Republican tax bill, warning that it threatens care for millions of sick Americans.

The legislation – which GOP leaders are rushing to pass this week – will eliminate beginning in 2019 the Affordable Care Act penalty on consumers without health coverage, a move many experts warn will weaken insurance markets in parts of the country. Continue reading “Republican tax bill fuels anxiety across the nation’s healthcare system”

Republicans’ latest plan to repeal Obamacare’s insurance requirement could wreak havoc in some very red states

The following article by Noam N. Levey was posted on the Los Angeles Times website November 27, 2017:

Serena Reeves, a health insurance counselor in Nebraska, helps Rifaah Hussein sign up for coverage through the Affordable Care Act. The latest GOP plan to repeal the law’s insurance mandate risks further inflating high premiums in some states. (Associated Press)

The Senate Republican plan to use tax legislation to repeal the federal requirement that Americans have health coverage threatens to derail insurance markets in conservative, rural swaths of the country, according to a Los Angeles Times data analysis.

That could leave consumers in these regions — including most or all of Alaska, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada and Wyoming, as well as parts of many other states — with either no options for coverage or health plans that are prohibitively expensive.

There are 454 counties nationwide with only one health insurer on the marketplace in 2018 and where the cheapest plan available to a 40-year-old consumer costs at least $500 a month. Markets in these places risk collapsing if Congress scraps the individual insurance mandate.

Continue reading “Republicans’ latest plan to repeal Obamacare’s insurance requirement could wreak havoc in some very red states”

GOP will try to tack Obamacare repeal to tax reform, which would cause millions to lose health care

The following article by Emily C. Singer was posted on the mic.com website November 14, 2017:

Republicans just can’t quit their unpopular effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

After multiple failed efforts to repeal former President Barack Obama’s signature health care bill, Republicans announced on Tuesday they will try to tack a repeal of the individual mandate — a key pillar of the health care law — onto the GOP tax reform bill.

Repealing the individual mandate — which was part of the “skinny repeal” effort that failed in the Senate over the summer — would free up funds that Republicans could use to pay for their tax cuts. Continue reading “GOP will try to tack Obamacare repeal to tax reform, which would cause millions to lose health care”