GOP Lawsuit Winners & Losers: Top 0.1% Get Tax Cut While 20 Million Americans Lose Health Insurance

New Report Shows Republican Lawsuit To Repeal ACA Would Cut Taxes For Multi-Millionaires While Kicking Millions Off Insurance

A new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities today shows that the Republican lawsuit to repeal the entire health care law that protects people with pre-existing conditions and expanded Medicaid would do more than kick 20 million people off their insurance. It would also give a huge tax windfall to “the highest-income Americans and certain corporations” — amounting to “a massive transfer of resources from low- and moderate-income people to those at the top of the income scale.”

Here are some key findings from the report:

• The top 0.1% — those with annual incomes of over $3 million — would get an average tax cut of nearly $200,000 per year.
• These tax cuts for the wealthy would cost the federal government about $30 billion this year alone — equivalent to their share of paying for health coverage for 4 million people through the ACA’s Medicaid expansion.
• If the lawsuit is successful, roughly 1 in 10 non-elderly Black Americans and 1 in 10 Hispanic Americans would lose health coverage, while the tax cuts for the wealthy would go overwhelmingly to white households.

Even in the midst of a pandemic, Senate Republicans are still plowing forward with their agenda to “terminate” the health care law. Not a single incumbent GOP senator has taken action to oppose their party’s lawsuit to strike down the entire law, and every Senate Republican voted for the 2017 tax bill that “sparked” this dangerous lawsuit. 

“Republicans’ goal with this dangerous lawsuit is clear — rip health care away from millions of working Americans while giving even more tax breaks to their wealthy donors,” said DSCC spokesperson Helen Kalla. “Every single Republican senator on the ballot must explain to voters why they support taking away access to health care in the middle of a pandemic to fund a massive tax windfall for the top 0.1%.”

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: ACA Repeal Lawsuit Would Cut Taxes for Top 0.1 Percent by an Average of $198,000

By Aviva Aron-Dine, Chye-Ching Huang, and Samantha Washington

Key Points:

• In the midst of a global pandemic and major recession, the Trump Administration and 18 state attorneys general are expected to file briefs this week asking the Supreme Court to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act (ACA). 

• President Trump affirmed his commitment to his Administration’s stance last month, saying “we want to terminate health care under Obamacare.”[1] Striking down the law would cause millions to lose their health coverage, while delivering a large tax cut to the highest-income Americans and certain corporations.

• Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, striking down the ACA would have caused 20 million people to lose health coverage, the Urban Institute estimated.[2]

• But there would also be some winners from the lawsuit, because striking down the ACA would cut taxes sharply for the highest-income Americans and certain corporations.

• In effect, the Administration and the state attorneys general are seeking a massive transfer of resources from low- and moderate-income people to those at the top of the income scale. The lawsuit would also widen racial gaps, with Black and Hispanic people disproportionately likely to lose health coverage and the overwhelming share of the tax cuts flowing to white people.

Read the full report here.

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