The American Health Care Act would be a great benefit to the nation's richest families, but a great disadvantage to the average poor family, according to a report by the Urban Institute and the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.
Under the plan, the average family earning less than $10,000 annually in 2022 would give up federal benefits worth $1,420, according to the report. Researchers said that's more than 30 percent of the family's income.
However, the average family earning more than $200,000 annually in 2022 would receive a tax break worth $5,640, according to the report. Researchers said that's an increase of 1.1 percent of the family's income. Overall, the study found more than 70 percent of the tax reductions in 2022 will go to families with an annual income of more than $200,000 and 46.2 percent will go to those with incomes that exceed $1 million.
"Using a measure of family income as a percent age of the federal poverty level, families with income below 200 percent of FPL would experience net tax and benefit losses and families with income above 300 percent of FPL would experience net gains under the AHCA," the report's authors added. "The greatest net gains would go to families with income exceeding 600 percent of the FPL."
Researchers put the report together based on estimates of federal Medicaid spending, AHCA tax credits, ACA premium tax credits and ACA cost-sharing reductions, among other factors. The report did not include changes to the AHCA unveiled earlier this week, particularly more funding for the age-based tax credits, notes The Washington Post.