Orrin Hatch: “While we are setting the record straight on ObamaCare, my colleagues on the other side have repeated a particular false…”

“While we are setting the record straight on ObamaCare, my colleagues on the other side have repeated a particular false claim that needs correction. My Democrat friends are fond of characterizing the repeal of ObamaCare as a tax cut for high-income earners and a tax increase for low- and middle-income taxpayers. That claim is simply false. According to JCT, the Joint Committee on Taxation, the Affordable Care Act imposed significant and widespread tax increases on taxpayers earning less than $200,000 a year, despite President Obama's repeated promises that the law would not do so. In fact, in 2017, a single provision--the reduction in the deductibility of catastrophic losses-- is projected to raise taxes on 13.8 million taxpaying families and individuals, mostly from the middle class. That is more than the number of taxpayers who receive exchange credits and other premium subsidies under current law. That is just one example. There are others. Fortunately, we have been able to forestall the impact of a number of the ObamaCare tax provisions. We have fought and negotiated long and hard to do so, but virtually all of those taxes are still looming on the ObamaCare horizon. Most of us on the Republican side have been fighting these taxes more or less since the day ObamaCare was signed into law. We have highlighted their harmful impact on the economy and decried the crony capitalism that was behind the effort to draft and enact them.…”