Elizabeth Warren on GOP Health Bill: ‘A Tax Cut for Millionaires and Billionaires’

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said on Friday that the centerpiece of the Republican’s plan to repeal and replace Obamacare is a massive tax cut for rich people.

“Bottom line here is when the Republicans want to start by saying, ‘Here’s our idea for health care:’ Let’s drive up cost for a lot of middle class families; let’s rip health insurance away from 24 million people; and let’s make a central feature doing a tax cut for millionaires and billionaires,” Warren told National Public Radio about the GOP’s American Health Care Plan.

“It’s pretty hard to work off that plan,” she continued. “Now, if the Republicans came back after they jam it through and said, ‘Gee, we’d like to close up the tax break or we’d like to provide health insurance to those 24 million people we just took it away from; or we’d like to lower cost for middle class families — of course,” Warren said.

“We’re looking at the plan they’ve put forward and the plan they’ve put forward helps, basically the millionaires and billionaires and kicks dirt into everybody else’s face.”

When asked whether opposing the legislation was the same kind of obstructive measures Democrats accused Republicans of using when Barack Obama was president, Warren defended her party.

“This is not about obstruction to try to cause someone to fail,” Warren said. “This is about trying to defend health insurance for millions of people who will have no alternatives.

“Trying to make sure that one bad diagnosis or one accident doesn’t lead them over a financial cliff,” Warren said.

The new score released by the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation on Thursday states:

“CBO and JCT estimate that, in 2018, 14 million more people would be uninsured under the legislation than under current law. The increase in the number of uninsured people relative to the number under current law would reach 21 million in 2020 and 24 million in 2026. In 2026, an estimated 52 million people under age 65 would be uninsured, compared with 28 million who would lack insurance that year under current law.”