Douglas Elmendorf, Dean of the Harvard Kennedy School, spoke as an expert witness before a House Democratic Caucus hearing on the impact of the Affordable Health Care Act, the House Republican health care bill.
"The health care legislation supported by the House Republican leadership would take our country backward, not forward. It would do that in at least 4 important ways," Elmendorf said.
Elmendorf highlighted its reversal of progress in expanding health insurance coverage, and the inability to afford health insurance—not freedom to choose—as the main driver behind the expected rise in the numbers of uninsured. The bill "would not represent shared sacrifice for the national good but rather targeted sacrifice by lower- and middle-income Americans," Elmendorf maintained, and "would take us backward by providing a large tax cut focused on the very top of the income distribution."
On the burden to lower- and middle-income Americans, Elmendorf noted that the bill "would leave the tax subsidies for higher-income Americans fully in place and clobber the tax subsidies -- and spending subsidies -- for lower-and middle-income Americans." At the same time, "one percent of households with the highest incomes would receive 40 percent of the gains from repealing the tax increases under the ACA," Elmendorf said, citing estimates by the Tax Policy Center.
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