Jim Hightower: Trump/Ryan Care would be bonanza for insurance company CEOs
It appears that House Speaker Paul Ryan’s 123-page legislative plan for Trumpcare, the GOP’s so-called “replacement” for Obamacare, is dead — for now, anyway.
Republicans tried to rush it through, but not before the Congressional Budget Office discovered it was actually a displacement plan.
That is, if it had passed, 24 million Americans who are now insured would have lost their insurance. Moreover, the premiums paid by senior citizens would have been jacked up, and the benefits for practically everyone would have been cut.
But Ryan did make sure that one group with special needs would have benefited from his legislative wizardry: the CEOs of giant insurance corporations.
Understandably, none of the GOP lawmakers who’ve been loudly crowing about killing Obamacare mentioned a little, six-line provision hidden on page 67, discretely titled “Remuneration from Certain Insurers.” In plain English, this gob of gobbledygook offers a tax subsidy that encourages insurance conglomerates to increase the pay of their top executives.
Current tax law says insurers can pay as much as they want to top executives, but they can only deduct $500,000 per executive from their corporate taxes. Under Ryan’s rip-off, however, we taxpayers would have at least doubled — and possibly quadrupled — the unconscionable salary subsidies we dole out to these enormously profitable corporations.
The White House and GOP Congress proclaimed that their replacement of Obamacare was “the will of the people.” Really? How many Americans think that jacking up the pay of super-rich insurance chiefs is a proper use of our tax dollars?
And I’d say a big majority of the people would think it immoral to steal lifesaving healthcare benefits from working-class and poor families just to subsidize corporate elites who are already overpaid.
If Republicans actually thought their executive pay subsidy was the will of the people, why did they try so hard to keep it a secret
Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer and public speaker. He’s also the editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown.
Jim Hightower: Hypocrite House speaker should spare us his lectures on morality of entitlements
Via OtherWords.org
For nearly half a century now, America’s middle-class working families have been pummeled by corporate greedmeisters and their political henchmen.
Indeed, during the recession, the typical median-income family has lost 40 percent of their wealth. Haven’t they been punished enough?
No, says U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan.
Along with other top Republican leaders of Congress, he intends to slash the Social Security money that middle-class and low-income workers depend on for their retirement, and he ultimately aims to kill it altogether.
Dependence on such public “entitlements,” he preaches, weakens our nation’s morality.
Entitlements? Social Security isn’t a welfare program — regular working people pay a 12-percent tax on every dime of their wages into this public pension fund year after year. They earn their retirement.
Morality? Social Security embodies America’s core moral value of fairness and our society’s commitment to the common good. And it works: Before it was enacted, half of all Americans spent their “golden years” in poverty.
Social Security has saved the great majority of us from old-age penury. Where is the morality in stealing away this earned retirement — and the modicum of dignity that comes with it — from millions?
Besides, a sermon on the morality of entitlements should never come from a congress critter’s mouth.
Ryan himself wallows in a mud pit of congressional entitlements that working stiffs couldn’t imagine getting: A $223,500 annual paycheck, a free limousine and chauffeur, a maximum-coverage health plan, a tax-paid PR agent, a lavish expense account, free travel — and, of course, a platinum-level congressional retirement program funded by the very taxpayers whose Social Security he’s out to kill.
Yet Ryan wonders why Congress’ public approval rating is plummeting toward single digits.
Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He’s also the editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown.