For Immediate Release
Date: November 21, 2017
Contact: Morgan Williams Grogan, morgan.williams@berlinrosen.com, 202-836-9890
“No Thanks” National Day of Action Urges Senators to Vote No on GOP Tax Scam
Health Care Advocates Hold Dozens of Events to Tell Senators “No Thanks” to GOP Tax Scam that will Repeal the ACA, Slash Medicaid and Medicare, and Raise Taxes on the Middle Class to Give a Massive Tax Giveaway to the 1% and Big Corporations
Today, advocates and grassroots organizations across the country hosted dozens of events with local community leaders, elected officials, faith leaders, small business owners and working families to hold members of Congress accountable and call on senators to reject the Republican tax proposals that would increase taxes on the middle class and cut health care programs that seniors, working families, children and people with disabilities depend on. As Thanksgiving approaches, advocates told their Congressional representatives, “No Thanks” to the Republican Tax Cut and Jobs Act that repeals part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in order finance a huge, permanent tax cut for multi-national corporations like Apple, Pfizer, Wells Fargo and others.
The events are part of a nationwide day of action led by Health Care for America Now (HCAN) to highlight how the Senate and House versions of the GOP tax bill would devastate health care and hurt middle class and working families. The Senate version repeals the individual responsibility provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts will increase the uninsured by 13 million and raise premiums by up to 10 percent for millions more. Both versions include massive tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations. The House package, for example, gives people with incomes over $1 million an annual tax cut of about $14,890 and those with incomes of over $3.1 million an annual cut of about $94,540. At the same time, 47 million more Americans will pay higher taxes, and the federal budget resolution passed last month paves the way for Republicans to cut $1.5 trillion from Medicaid and Medicare next year to pay for these massive tax breaks.
“Republicans know that their tax bill is a massive scam on the hard-working Americans they pretend to represent. It cuts taxes for the rich and big corporations and makes the rest of us pay. That’s why they are working to jam through their unpopular plan as quickly as possible,” said HCAN co-directors Ethan Rome and Margarida Jorge. “While millionaires, billionaires and big corporations win huge and unneeded tax breaks, middle class and working families pay more in taxes and face drastic cuts to essential programs like health care and education.”
Tuesday’s Thanksgiving-themed events recalled ways the ACA, Medicaid and Medicare have improved people’s lives and called on key senators to say, “No Thanks!” to any bill that cuts health care, repeals the ACA and raises taxes on working families to pay for tax breaks for millionaires and working families. Events included:
- A press conference calling on Senator Ron Johnson to vote against the tax bill with Representative Gwen Moore, local mayors and Citizen Action Wisconsin at a Milwaukee senior center.
- A “No thanks” card delivery to Senator John McCain’s Tucson, Arizona office that will ask him to vote down the tax bill.
- A rally outside of Trump Tower in New York with the mayor’s office to save seniors from the Trump tax scam.
- A prayerful protest in Warren, Ohio, calling on Sen. Rob Portman to reject the GOP tax bill.
- An event at Sen. Bob Corker’s Nashville office demanding that he “reject the tax scam turkey.”
Event participants urged senators to reject the tax plan, which is expected to come up for a vote in the Senate following this week’s Congressional recess. In addition to reviving ACA repeal that the Senate has already rejected numerous times, the bill forces devastating cuts to Medicaid, ending its guarantee of coverage for children, seniors, and people with disabilities.
Participants also held accountable the House Republicans who last week voted to support the House version of the tax bill that the CBO said would immediately cause a $25 billion cut to Medicare each year, raise taxes for up to 36 million middle-class Americans and would force even deeper cuts in Medicaid, Medicare, education and other key services over the next 10 years.
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Health Care for America Now (HCAN) is the national grassroots coalition that ran a $60 million five-and-a-half year campaign from 2008-2013 to pass, protect, and promote the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and protect Medicare and Medicaid. HCAN has come back together to fight the Republicans’ all-out effort to take away America’s health care and put people at the mercy of the health insurance companies again.
