Senate Democrats who fret over the distributional effects of tax cuts should thank their GOP colleagues for giving them the chance this week to vote on repealing one of the most regressive taxes: the Obamacare tax on the uninsured.This tax disproportionately falls on those with incomes less than $50,000, while exempting many households earning...
Health Insurance
Obamacare’s Individual Mandate Is Repealing Itself
The Senate this week is expected to vote on a tax bill that includes a controversial provision to repeal Obamacare’s tax penalty on the uninsured. Democrats and some conservative policy analysts fret that if Congress scuttles the so-called individual mandate, insurance premiums will rise. The reverse may be closer to the truth: Premiums for...
Health Reform: Helping the States Help the Poor
Many Catholics, especially Catholic leaders, have been conflicted over bills that have been presented to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act: They strenuously object to the ACA’s affront to religious liberty yet they know it offers access to health insurance for millions, including those who have been left behind in our bifurcated system....
The Hatch-Brady bill offers a way to make health insurance affordable
The Oct. 26 editorial “Health-care reform that pays off” unfairly maligned a bill introduced by two committee chairmen as “dismantling major pieces of Obamacare.” It does nothing of the sort. Like the bill proposed by Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) that the editorial praised, a bill from Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)...
Obamacare Is Uninsuring the Insured
The law expanded coverage among the poor at the expense of coverage among the middle class. The number of people with individual health-insurance coverage is shrinking. Despite $146 billion in federal subsidies to low-income households and well-capitalized insurers, 2.6 million fewer people had individual policies in March 2017 than in March 2016, a drop...
The Deadline to Kill the Death Panel
If the House acts fast, it can abolish a bad ObamaCare provision. All eyes are on the Senate as it debates what to do about…