The GOP’s Health Care Law is an Immoral Disaster 

You’ll hear a lot about the GOP’s new health plan in the coming days. Here are the things you really need to know, though:

1. It gives insurance companies a tax break on CEO salaries over $500,000;

2. It cuts taxes a minimum of $346 billion over 10 years, with every cent of that tax cut going to people earning more than $200,000 per year or $250,000 for couples.

3. It will, by its very terms and by the clear incentives it creates, cause millions to lose coverage, primarily the poor; and 

4. It will give no person coverage who does not already have access to it via the Affordable Care Act.

Given that it reduces the amount of and access to health care services for every single person who uses or would use it, calling this a “health care” law is the most cynical and obscene thing I have seen from Congress in my lifetime.

Cutting taxes for the wealthy and allowing insurance companies to save money and pay their executives more was the only goal here. That and being able to say “we got rid of Obamacare!” in campaign ads.

The proposed law is morally indefensible. Any lawmaker — like my lawmaker, Pat Tiberi — who supports it is declaring that tax cuts for the wealthy are more important to them than the health and lives of human beings. Their support for this law is a declaration of their unfitness for office. 

Craig Calcaterra

Craig is the author of the daily baseball (and other things) newsletter, Cup of Coffee. He writes about other things at Craigcalcaterra.com. He lives in New Albany, Ohio with his wife, two kids, and many cats.