Congressman Dan Kildee: Republican Tax Bill is Resulting in Higher Health Care Premiums for Michigan's Working Families

Statement

Congressman Dan Kildee (MI-05) joined Congressman Richard Neal (MA-01), the Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Activist Ady Barkan to announce a new report showing that key provisions of the Republican tax bill are raising health insurance premiums for working class families in Michigan and across America.

The new state-by-state analysis by the Center for American Progress shows that the Republican tax plan will raise Michiganders' premiums by an average of $1,520 next year. This increase in premiums will completely eliminate the average $701 tax benefit working families received from the bill and leave them with $819 less than they had before the law passed.

"This new report highlights what I am hearing from my constituents--the Republican tax bill that also repealed parts of the Affordable Care Act is leading to massive health premium increases across Michigan," said Congressman Kildee. "Because of the Republican tax law, working families are facing massive year-over-year increases in their health care premiums. This is just another example of how the Republican tax law overwhelmingly benefits the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations while hurting middle class families, who are still struggling to make ends meet."

The new report finds that, "the wealthy will see enormous windfalls, paid for in part by an undermining of the Affordable Care Act, and some families will face increases in health care premiums far larger than the average tax cuts received by working- and middle-class families across the country."

"Today's report from the Center for American Progress confirms much of what we Democrats foresaw during the debate over the Republican tax legislation. The damage was done to America's health care system and it is substantial," said Ranking Member Neal. "President Trump and Speaker Ryan cared more about giving the most well off and well-connected people massive tax cuts than they did about caring for insuring America's families and allowing them to have affordable health insurance."

According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, Republican attacks on the Affordable Care Act and their efforts to push families into junk health insurance plans will spike premiums by an additional 10 percent next year, causing 9 million fewer people to be insured by 2027.

Meanwhile, just four percent of American workers have seen any kind of bonus or wage increase from the GOP tax bill. Meanwhile, some of the biggest corporations have already announced over $250 billion in stock buybacks that benefit wealthy corporate CEOs and shareholders.

In recent polling, more than 60 percent of American voters say the Republican tax bill will either have a negative impact or no effect at all on their families.

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