2017-01-23washingtonpost.com

... most of the revenue the ACA raised flows from some very rich waters... the latest payback for some of the working class voters who helped elect the incoming president is to take away their health care and give the savings to millionaires and billionaires... In fact, the repeal leads to the richest 400 households getting a $2.8 billion tax break that's bigger than the value of almost 670,000 ACA tax credits worth $2.5 billion going to people in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Indeed; though we note that proper health care reform would lower costs dramatically overall (perhaps by 1/3rd or even half or more). To wit, the U.S. currently spends about 18% of GDP on health care, which comes to $3.2 trillion; if this percentage was lowered (through cost-reducing incentive shifts) to a more reasonable (for modern developed countries) level of 12%, that would constitute a trillion dollars of savings. And these savings would inherently be most heavily felt by the non-rich. The devil is of course in the details, but the "eye" should be kept on the "ball" of the main benefit of health care system reform (more like "repair"); the non-rich won't miss that $2.8 billion when they are saving $1 trillion. Still, it's undoubtedly more fair not to have any cuts like this come before the cost-savings aspects kick in.



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