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GOP Corporate Tax Giveaway Boosted Insurance Companies While CEO Pay Dwarfed CDC’s Infectious Disease Research Budget

With 41 Million Americans Unemployed, Senate Republicans Won’t Make It Easier for People Who Have Lost Their Health Insurance to Get Coverage

As Senate Republicans continue making it harder for people who have lost their health insurance to get coverage and the GOP “plows forward” with their lawsuit to tear down the entire health care law that provides protections for pre-existing conditions and expanded Medicaid, a new report from Axios shows that health care CEOs raked in four times the CDC’s budget to study and prepare for infectious diseases last year. 

These “big payouts” for corporate executives come after every single Senate Republican on the ballot voted for the GOP tax giveaway that gave top insurance and pharmaceutical companies “a $100 billion bonanza” in tax savings over the next decade. After gifting a massive windfall to big corporations, not a single Republican senator spoke out to oppose President Trump’s proposed “big cuts” to the CDC in his budget blueprint and years of Trump “slashing the government agencies responsible for handling the coronavirus outbreak,” which led to the CDC being forced to cut its global disease prevention efforts by 80% in 2018. 

While nearly 41 million Americans have filed for unemployment in recent months due to the public health crisis — and tens of millions have likely lost their health insurance — Senate Republicans have refused to demand the Trump administration open up a special enrollment period for health coverage. And as Republicans move forward with their lawsuit to “terminate” the Affordable Care Act, Senate Republicans “still see no need to act on health care” and have “no plan” to provide emergency relief for Americans who’ve lost their health care during the pandemic.

“While the GOP continues to tear down the health care law that protects people with pre-existing conditions, corporate CEOs are raking in billions in pay after Senate Republicans gifted them a sweetheart tax deal,” said DSCC spokesperson Helen Kalla. “The fact that Senate Republicans still have ‘no plan’ to help Americans who’ve lost their health coverage during a pandemic but were happy to help big corporations to a massive tax break tells voters all they need to know about where vulnerable Republicans’ priorities lie.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Axios: Health care CEO pay outstrips infectious disease research

Bob Herman

June 1, 2020

Key Points:

  • The CEOs of 179 health care companies took home almost $2.5 billion in 2019, a majority of which came from cashing out stock, according to an Axios analysis of financial filings.
  • The big picture: That amount is four times what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had to study and prepare for all “emerging and zoonotic infectious diseases” last year, right before the novel coronavirus outbreak turned into a global pandemic.
  • By the numbers: The median pay of a health care CEO in 2019 was roughly $8 million, similar to 2018. Seventeen CEOs made more than $30 million each.

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