Who Wins and Who Loses Under Republicans’ Health Care Plan -
Get the Upshot in your Inbox
By KEVIN QUEALY and MARGOT SANGER-KATZ MARCH 8, 2017
Both Obamacare and the recent Republican replacement proposal use refundable tax credits to help people buy their health insurance.
But if you put Obamacare out of your mind, this program still represents a very large outlay of federal money to help Americans buy health insurance.
And the tax credits in the Republican bill would go to people regardless of whether they even paid taxes -- another reason conservatives oppose it
Obamacare’s subsidies were structured to limit how much low- and middle-income Americans could be asked to pay for health insurance.
Obamacare calculated the credits based on the cost of insurance in a given area and how much the purchaser could afford to pay.
That’s why many policy experts believe that the new system would result in fewer Americans having health insurance.
The winners are likely to be younger, earn higher incomes and live in areas where the cost of health insurance is low.
