From Americans for Tax Fairness (https://americansfortaxfairness.org/):
Date: July 30, 2018
Nearly $2 trillion cost of Trump-GOP tax cuts threatens 4.9 million Pennsylvania recipients with less coverage, higher costs
[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – As Medicare and Medicaid turn 53 years old today, the two historic healthcare programs covering 120 million Americans—including 4.9 million recipients in Pennsylvania—are under threat from Trump-GOP tax and budget cuts. There is a connection between the GOP’s tax cuts costing $1.9 trillion that passed late last year and Republican plans this year to slash trillions of dollars from vital public services, as shown by their proposed cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.
Americans for Tax Fairness and allied organizations have released state reports marking the programs’ anniversaries, one of which details the impact the GOP’s proposed cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would have on Pennsylvania residents. The report also explains how the new tax law mostly benefits the wealthy and corporations in Pennsylvania, creating a cruel tradeoff of tax cuts that mostly enrich the already wealthy leading to budget cuts that harm working families.
The report finds:
- 4.9 million Pennsylvania residents enrolled in Medicare or Medicaid face threats to their coverage as President Trump and the GOP try to pay for the deficits caused by their tax cuts, which mostly benefit the state’s wealthiest families and most profitable corporations.
- Trump, who as a candidate promised never to cut Medicare or Medicaid, now is seeking a total of $1.3 trillion in cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and the ACA.
- House Republicans propose slashing $2 trillion from Medicare, Medicaid and the ACA to reduce the debt and pay for the tax cuts.
- Parents in a Pennsylvania family of three can make no more than $28,676 to qualify for Medicaid. The median income of Medicare recipients nationwide is about $26,000.
- By comparison, the 64,170 Pennsylvania residents who make up the state’s wealthiest 1% have an average annual income of $1.9 million. Each will get a tax cut of over $53,580 a year on average under the Trump-GOP tax law.
- Trump and the GOP still want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which protects 5.3 million Pennsylvania residents with pre-existing conditions from being denied coverage or charged exorbitant premiums.
- The Trump-GOP tax law gave the nation’s 10 largest drug companies a $76 billion tax cut on their accumulated offshore profits, even as those firms have jacked up prices on their most widely used products by up to 15% annually in recent years.
The report concludes that to strengthen Medicare and Medicaid for another half century—and support improvements to the Affordable Care Act—Congress should repeal the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations and use the recovered revenue to bolster, not weaken, the American healthcare system. We hope you will write an opinion piece that reaches the same conclusion.
To find out how the U.S. senators and representatives in your media market voted on “Health Care Repeal” and the Trump-GOP Tax Cuts you can go to this vote chart.
For more information on who benefits from Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act in Pennsylvania—and how their health care is threatened by Republican tax and budget cuts—please refer to the report linked HERE.
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