The Congressional Budget Office released a report showing the impact of the GOP’s tax bill, and the findings suggest that poor people will be hurt more by the bill than was previously thought.
The CBO found that people making less than $30,000 per year would be worse off under the bill by 2019. People making less than $40,000 would be worse off by 2021, and people making less than $75,000 would be worse off by 2027.
One of the biggest problems that the CBO has foreseen with the bill is the fact that it drops the requirement that people must buy healthcare or pay a fine. As healthy people choose to drop out of the insurance market, premiums will rise, leading poorer people to be pushed out of health insurance.
This will lead to poor people losing the tax credits and subsidies that come with their health care, thus impacting people in the lowest tax brackets even more.
The CBO also noted that Medicaid, Medicare and the Basic Health Program will all be hit by the tax plan, further impacting poor people.
Republicans have argued that not buying healthcare is a choice, and calculations that do not include the impact of health insurance show tax cuts across the board, including for poor people.
However, those tax cuts will only last until 2027, at which point people making less than $75,000 will pay more. While Republicans claim that future lawmakers will extend the tax cuts, that’s no guarantee for the people who will be hurt if they don’t.