Warren Buffett Calls Out Trump's Obamacare Repeal Bill
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Chairman Warren Buffett took on the Republican Obamacare repeal bill that was passed by the House this week and called it “a huge tax cut” for the rich.
The billionaire investor was speaking at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholders' meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, which is attended every year by tens of thousands of investors and is referred to as the “Woodstock of capitalism.”
“Medical costs are the tapeworm of American economic competitiveness,” Buffett said, as reported by the New York Times. “That is a problem this society is having trouble with and is going to have more trouble with.”
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The world’s second richest man – according to Forbes’ 2017 ranking – explained how healthcare costs were a bigger problem for American businesses than high taxes. While most developed countries publicly finance their healthcare spending, U.S.-based employers provide health insurance coverage for almost half of the population, often at high rates. Buffett added that the costs “will go up a lot more.”
Buffett said if the bill pushed by President Donald Trump was in effect last year, his federal income taxes would have gone down by 17 percent.
“So it is a huge tax cut for guys like me,” Buffett was reported saying by Reuters. “And when there's a tax cut, either the deficit goes up or they get the taxes from somebody else.”
Trump’s proposed tax plan is expected to cut corporate tax to 15 percent – “to the benefit of shareholders” as Buffett put it – and the new Republican healthcare bill would also repeal most of the taxes that paid for the Obamacare, or as it is formally known, the Affordable Care Act.
The GOP bill, however, has an uphill task ahead of it as it faces the Senate. Critics of the bill have said it will take away the healthcare benefits of millions of people and allow the rich to get tax breaks, just as mentioned by Buffett.
“Donald Trump and Republicans just celebrated voting to let thousands of Americans die so that billionaires get tax breaks,” Trump critic and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders tweeted after the bill was passed in the House with a 217-213 vote. “Think about that.”
Another Democratic senator who has been a vocal critic of the new bill said it would just make the rich wealthier while taking away basic healthcare from those in need.
“Trumpcare isn’t a health care bill. A bill that destroys health care for millions to shovel cash to the rich isn’t a health care bill. #AHCA” Sen. Elizabeth Warren tweeted.
Buffett is a Democrat who is said to be close to former President Barack Obama. He supported Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election and has asked Trump to release his tax returns in the past.
Buffett was joined by his longtime business partner, Charles Munger, who said both political parties – Republicans and Democrats – were facing great difficulty in thinking rationally about the issue at hand because they “hate each other so much.”
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