We’ve known GOP health care reform isn’t primarily health care reform since we learned that they intended to jettison campaign promises to help people struggling with high deductibles, or people whom the Affordable Care Act coverage expansion didn’t reach, and instead take health insurance away from millions of Americans.
But the text of the no-longer-secret Senate bill provides ample proof that, as many critics including myself have noted, Republicans’ Obamacare repeal effort is actually a regressive tax cut plan disguised as health care legislation.
This is perhaps the most significant tell:
The economic-growth argument for cutting capital-gains taxes is that taxing investment gains at a lower rate than other kinds of income creates an incentive for people to save and invest and thus grow the economy. In other words, the non-greedy justification for cutting capital gains taxes is all about the future. A retroactive cut spurs nothing, because it essentially refunds taxes already paid by the wealthy for gains they already realized. The reason there’s a give-money-to-rich-people provision in a bill called the “Better Care Reconciliation Act” is because it’s a millionaire tax cut bill dressed up as a health bill. Practically the only people taken better care of under its terms are people who already have it extremely good in life.