WASHINGTON (AP) – Top Senate Republicans may try preserving a tax boost on high earners enacted by President Barack Obama in a bid to woo party moderates and rescue their sputtering push to repeal his health care overhaul.
The break from dogma by a party that has long reviled tax boosts – and most things achieved by Obama – underscores Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s feverish effort to yank one of his and President Donald Trump’s foremost priorities from the brink of defeat. The money would instead be used to bolster proposed health care subsidies for lower-income people.
The change, proposed by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., would give a more populist flavor to the bill. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that as the legislation now is written, it would boost out-of-pocket costs for many poor consumers and produce 22 million uninsured people while cutting around $700 billion in taxes over a decade – largely for richer people and the health care industry.
“You’re increasing the burden on lower-income citizens and obviously alleviating the burden on the wealthy. That is not an equation that works,” Corker said. He said he was “very confident” that leaders would address the issue in the updated bill.
Top Republicans also considered an amendment pushed by conservatives to let insurers offer plans with low premiums and scant benefits. To do so, a company would also have to sell a policy that abides by the consumer-friendly coverage requirements in Obama’s 2010 statute, which the GOP is struggling to repeal.