For Immediate Release: Saturday, December 2, 2017
Contact: Laura Brandon, laura.brandon@
Senate Votes to Gut Medicaid, Medicare for Working Families to Fund Massive Tax Breaks for the Rich and Corporations
Washington, D.C. – After the U.S. Senate voted for a tax giveaway to the very wealthy and big corporations that will pave the way for massive Medicaid and Medicare cuts, strip 13 million Americans of health care coverage and increase insurance premiums by 10 percent for millions more, Health Care for America Now Co-Directors Ethan Rome and Margarida Jorge released the following statement:
“The Senate Republicans’ vote for their terrible tax bill is an attack on millions of Americans who will see their health care disappear, their taxes increase and the programs that help them get by gutted. Instead of making millionaires, billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share, the GOP is engineering a massive redistribution of wealth from low- and moderate-income families to wealthy individuals, Wall Street CEOs, hedge fund managers, and corporations.
“You can’t get any lower than robbing from seniors, kids, and working families to give the richest 1 percent more perks, but that’s exactly what the GOP bill does – it gives an enormous tax break to the super-rich and big corporations and sticks everyone else with the bill. It does this by repealing part of the ACA, slashing Medicaid and Medicare, and taking away deductions the middle-class depends on in the tax code. The GOP has taken aim at millions of seniors, working families, children and people with disabilities, forcing them to pay more taxes and cutting services – all so that the GOP’s rich donors can get richer.
“Senate Republicans have turned their backs on the people they purport to represent. America’s families will remember that the GOP put its donors ahead of their health care in 2018 and beyond. Every representative and senator will have to answer for their vote at the ballot box.”
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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.
