As GOP Tax Bill Evolves, Healthcare Becomes Focus

FEATURING LINDSAY KOSHGARIAN – House Republicans are planning to vote on their behemoth and hugely unpopular tax reform bill by Thursday. A new analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has concluded that because their bill costs the treasury so much money – $1.5 trillion over ten years – it would trigger automatic cuts to Medicare under a separate set of rules called Pay-As-You-Go. So, to reward their rich friends with tax cuts House Republicans are apparently willing to cut $25 billion to the Medicare program.

Meanwhile Republican Senators are also tackling their own version of the bill. Senate Finance Committee Chair Orrin Hatch made two major changes to the House version: he wants to end the Obamacare individual mandate and sunset individual tax cuts for wealthy Americans in order to trim the bill’s costs.

In targeting Medicare and Obamacare, has the GOP turned its tax reform plan into a stealth attack on healthcare?

Find more information at www.nationalpriorities.org.

Lindsay Koshgarian, Research Director at National Priorities Project.