Politics

Health Care Replacement Bill Repeals Nearly Every Obamacare Tax

Reuters/Carlos Barria

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Ted Goodman Contributor
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The American Health Care Act (AHCA), passed 217-213 by the Republican-controlled House, repeals a series of taxes that predominately affect middle-income Americans, according to Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), a nonprofit taxpayer advocacy group.

“It repeals a series of about six or seven taxes that directly hit middle income people,” Grover Norquist, president of ATR, told the Daily Caller News Foundation (TheDCNF) Friday.

The AHCA abolishes the Obamacare individual mandate tax, as well as the Obamacare employer mandate tax. The individual mandate hits approximately 8 million Americans each year, according to ATR. The repeal of the employer mandate is a $270 billion tax cut, according to the group.

The employer mandate applies to entities with more than 50 full-time employees, and was cited as a burden by many medium sized businesses.

The AHCA abolishes Obamacare’s medicine cabinet tax, which is a $6 billion tax cut, according to ATR. The tax hits close to 20 million Americans with health savings accounts and 30 million Americans with flexible spending accounts.

The GOP’s plan is to eliminate the Obamacare subsidies, and instead, issue refundable tax credits to help people buy insurance coverage. The AHCA removed nearly all of the Obamacare tax subsidies, including the flexible spending account tax. “It moves us one trillion dollars closer to a pro-growth tax reform package,” Norquist said of the AHCA.

The legislation repeals Obamacare’s chronic care tax, which hit nearly 10 million Americans with high out-of-pocket medical expenses. The repeal is expected to result in a $126 billion tax cut.

The repeal of the Obamacare health insurance tax is expected to equal a $145 billion tax cut. The AHCA also repeals the Obamacare surtax on investment income, which ATR says is a $172 billion tax cut.

The legislation also repeals Obamacare’s tax on retiree prescription drug coverage, the tax on prescription medicine in general, and on medical devices.

“As a presidential candidate in 2008, Barack Obama had promised repeatedly that he would not raise any tax on any American earning less than $250,000 per year,” ATR said in a statement. “He broke the promise when he signed Obamacare.”

“With the passage of the House GOP bill, tens of millions of middle income Americans will get tax relief from Obamacare’s long list of tax hikes,” Norquist asserted.

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