US Tax-Cut Bill Will Kill 12,000 Americans Through Health Cover Loss Over 2 Trump Terms

 

Muslim- and American-killing Trump has finished 2017 on a high having secured passage through Congress of his deadly Tax-Cut Bill that will shift $1.5 trillion from health, education and welfare to tax relief that will overwhelmingly benefit corporations and the rich. However the Tax-Cut Bill also includes repeal of the ObamaCare individual mandate, a measure that will remove 13 million Americans from health insurance by 2027 and kill 12,300 Americans through loss of health cover over 2 Trump terms.

The Republican Tax-cut Bill has passed both chambers of Congress and will eventually be signed into law by Trump [1-4]. According to the ABC, the Tax-Cut Bill package will cost $1.5 trillion and involve a massive wealth transfer: “The bill would slash the corporate income tax rate from 35 per cent to 21 per cent. The top tax rate for individuals would be lowered from 39.6 per cent to 37 per cent. The legislation repeals an important part of the 2010 health care law known as Obamacare — the requirement that all Americans carry health insurance or face a penalty — as the GOP looks to unravel the law it failed to repeal and replace this past summer. It also allows oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge” [1].

The  ABC further reports that by 2025 most of the benefit will go to One Percenters: “The bill makes the corporate tax cut from 35 per cent to 21 per cent permanent while the more limited tax cuts for the middle class expire in 2025. At that point the independent Tax Policy Centre estimates that more than 80 per cent of the tax money will go to the top 1 per cent” [2].

While endlessly mendacious, truth-challenged Trump has falsely declared that “Obamacare has been repealed in this bill”, the Tax-Cut Bill only repeals that part of Obamacare called the “individual mandate” [3]. Sy Mukherjee has provided the  following explanation in “Fortune”: “The GOP’s new tax bill, which passed Congress on Wednesday afternoon after one last vote in the House of Representatives and will be signed by President Donald Trump, is also a health care bill. The tax bill does at least as much (if not more) to upend Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, than even all of the Trump administration’s thousand cuts to the health law over the past year by repealing the individual mandate.… The individual mandate… requires most Americans (other than those who qualify for a hardship exemption) to carry a minimum level of health coverage… Ultimately, repealing Obamacare’s individual mandate would cause 13 million fewer Americans to be insured in 2027 compared with current law, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Healthier and wealthier people may choose to forgo coverage, and even poorer, medically needy people may not sign up for insurance because they don’t know which options are available and there may not be the same sense of urgency to enroll without the mandate. The CBO also predicts that premiums in the markets would spike 10% without Obamacare’s individual mandate as the exchanges are left with a sicker consumer pool” [4].

The shifting of $1.5 trillion to the rich and super-rich from health, education and welfare will inevitably kill thousands of Americans, 1.7 million of whom already die from preventable causes each year, the breakdown including (noting some category overlaps):  (1)  443,000 from smoking-related causes annually, (2) 440,000 from adverse events in hospitals each year, (3) 300,000 from obesity-related causes annually, (4) 200,000 from air pollution (e.g. from coal burning, vehicle exhaust, and carbon fuel burning in general), (5) 75,000 alcohol-related deaths annually, (6) 45,000 from lack of medical insurance, (7) 38,000 drug-related deaths annually, this including  21,000 US opiate drug-related deaths annually from US restoration and protection of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry, (8) 33,000 killed by motor vehicles each year, (9) 31,000 gun-related deaths annually, (10) 30,000 suicides,  (11) 21,000 avoidable under-5 year old infant deaths, and (12) 15,000 Americans violently murdered annually [5-8].

The $1.5 trillion wealth transfer to the rich from health, education and welfare will certainly impact this continuing  American Holocaust  involving  1.7 million annual American preventable deaths, but the precise extent of this impact is hard to assess. However, as explained below,  a precise estimate can be made of the impact of the Tax-Cut Bill on category (6), specifically  45,000 annual American deaths due to lack of medical insurance (health cover). This precise estimate is made possible because the Republican Tax-Cut Bill also included abolition of the ObamaCare’s “individual mandate”, a measure that the non-partisan  Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated would mean 13 million fewer Americans with health cover by 2027  [1-4, 9].

 

Earlier in  2017 Trump  had attempted to repeal ObamaCare but his attempt was foiled by Congressional representatives responding to widespread outrage over the deadly consequences of such a move. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had estimated that the ObamaCare-replacing, Trump Republican American Health Care Act would be deadly by meaning 14 million more uninsured Americans in 2018 and 24 million by 2026. The prestigious Harvard Medical School had estimated that lack of health insurance kills about 45,000 Americans each year [10] and Trump’s removal of millions of Americans from Health Cover was precisely estimated to  kill 43,000 Americans over 2 Trump terms versus an expected 30 jihadi terrorism deaths over the same period [7].

Now that the Republican Tax-cut Bill has been passed, including repeal of the ObamaCare  “individual mandate” provision, one can precisely estimate 12,300 American  deaths from lack of health insurance over 2 Trump terms, as set out below.

In 2011 58% of 312 million Americans (i.e. 181 million Americans) had health cover i.e. 312 million – 181 million = 131 million didn’t have Health Cover [11].

A 2009 analysis from the  Harvard Medical School  estimated that 45,000 Americans die from lack of health insurance each year [10].

With this information we can roughly estimate that 131 million Americans without health insurance corresponds to 45,000 American deaths each year from this deficiency or 45,000/ 131 million = 343.5 American deaths annually for each 1 million Americans without health insurance.  We can use this relationship to estimate the expected American deaths due to the Republican Tax-Cut Bill’s repeal of the ObamaCare “individual mandate” provision  and removal of millions of Americans from life-saving Health Cover [4, 9].

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that 13 million more Americans would be uninsured by 2027 under the Republican Tax-Cut Bill [4, 9].

Assuming that future compensatory Health Care amendments are ineffective [4, 9], that there are   no future mitigating legislative changes,  and that there is a subsequent  linear increase in Americans removed from health cover from 0 in 2017 to 13 million in 2027 [4, 9] , we can graphically estimate  the following cumulative numbers of Americans removed from health cover in the period 2018-2026: 1.23 million (2018),  2.57 million (2019), 3.83 million (2020), 5.14 million (2021), 6.38 million (2022), 7.68 million (2023), 8.97 million (2024), 10.25 million (2025), and 11.55 million (2026), 13 million (2027).

Assuming 343.5 American deaths annually for each 1 million Americans without health insurance [10, 11], we can determine the following American deaths due to removal from Health Cover by the Republican Trump Administration’s Tax legislation : 1.23 million x 343.5 deaths/million = 423 (2018),  883 (2019), 1,316 (2020), 1,766 (2021), 2,192 (2022), 2,638 (2023), 3,081 (2024), 3,521 (2025), 3,967 million (2026) and 4,466 (2017).

This data means that if Donald Trump has a single 4-year term (2017-2020), his Tax Act that has now been passed by Congress will kill 2,622 Americans, and if Trump has 2-terms (2017-2024) the health insurance changes due to his  Tax-Cut Bill policies will kill 12,299  Americans i.e. this Trump and Republican  measure will kill about 12,300 Americans over 2 Trump terms.

Putting in context Trump’s mass murder of 12,300 Americans via the Republican Tax-Cut Bill.

America is ruled by a Zionist-subverted, Zionist-perverted, neoliberal, and corporatist One Percenter  Establishment. Trump America represents the apogee (highest point) of the currently dominant, anti-social, ecologically disastrous and indeed terracidal neoliberalism that seeks to maximize the freedom of the smart and advantaged to exploit human and natural resources for private profit with an asserted “trickle down” to the less advantaged. The alternative system that must be adopted if we are to save Humanity and the Biosphere  is  social humanism (socialism, democratic socialism, eco-socialism, the welfare state) that involves sustainably maximizing dignity, opportunity and happiness for everybody through evolving intra-national and international social contracts [12-16].

French economist Thomas Piketty in “Capitalism in the Twenty First Century” argues that huge wealth inequity (the One Percenters now have 50% of the wealth) is bad for the economy (the numerous poor cannot buy the goods and services they produce) and bad for democracy (Big Money buys votes by determining effective free speech and hence  public perception of reality). Piketty suggests a rigorous international exposure of wealth accumulation and an  annual wealth tax (as exampled in France or for 1,400 years as a 2.5% annual wealth tax or zakkat in the Muslim world) [17-20]. 17 million people die avoidably from deprivation each year [21] and one can estimate that a 4% annual wealth tax would lift all countries to a $7,000 per capita GDP that with good governance in China and Cuba means that avoidable mortality is zero in these countries i.e. it is possible to stop this  Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust [19]. Of course such humanitarian action is anathema to neoliberalism and its  most primitive and barbaric exponent, Donald Trump.

The World is acutely and existentially threatened by (a) nuclear weapons, (b) poverty, and (c) man-made climate change –  (a) a nuclear exchange and subsequent Nuclear Winter would wipe out most of   Humanity and the Biosphere (speciescide, ecocide, omnicide and terracide) [22], (b) poverty already  kills 17 million people annually on Spaceship Earth with neoliberal One Percenters in charge of the fight deck (with this set to increase as  agronomical resources are further depleted) [21], and (c) 7 million people already die annually from air pollution [23], a catastrophic plus 2C temperature rise is now unavoidable [24, 25], and unaddressed man-made climate change is predicted to kill as many as 10 billion people this century in a worsening climate genocide  [26]. Barbarian buffoon Trump (a) has brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, (b) heads deadly global neoliberalism that kills 17 million people annually, and (c) is a climate change denier and terracidal environmental vandal.

While 17 million people die avoidably each year from deprivation in the Developing World (minus China) , in rich societies of the “5-eyes” Anglosphere (the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand), of Western Europe, and of prosperous Asia (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore) annual avoidable death on the international  comparative scale  is essentially zero, as it is in the poor (per capita) but socially progressive countries China and Cuba [21].  Nevertheless, resolutely ignored by terror hysterical Mainstream journalist , politician and academic presstitutes in the Anglosphere are  huge, often self-inflicted,  preventable deaths from social causes (e.g. smoking, drinking, air pollution, suicide etc) that each year total 1.7 million (in the US), 150,000 (UK), 100,000 (Canada), 85,000 (Australia) and 17,000 (New Zealand) [5-8, 27-29]. In stark contrast, only 3 Australians have ever been killed by jihadi terrorists in Australia, and only 4 Americans have died thus each year in America since 9-11 [5-8, 27, 28, 30].

Whereas 32 million Muslims have been killed by violence, 5 million, or by imposed deprivation, 27 million,  in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance in the Zionist-backed US War on Muslims since the US Government’s 9-11 false flag atrocity [31-33], American preventable deaths since 9-11 total 1.7 million per year x 16 years = 27 million preventable, “lifestyle” deaths. In an enormous fiscal perversion that is overwhelmingly  ignored by One Percenter-controlled Mainstream media, America has committed $6 trillion to killing 32 million  Muslims abroad in the War on Terror instead of keeping 27 million Americans alive at home.  Barbarian Trump’s mass murder of 12,300 Americans via the Republican Tax-Cut Bill and the concomitant deadly diversion of $1.5 trillion to the rich from health, education and welfare simply represents the latest atrocity in that appalling, neoliberal  fiscal perversion.

What can decent people do? Decent people must inform everyone they can and especially the long-suffering American people who are grossly deceived by the endless mendacity and  fake news through lying by omission of the One Percenter-controlled Mainstream media [34, 35]. Wake up America!

References.

[1] “US Senate approves deeply unpopular tax cut bill in midnight vote”, ABC News, 21 December 2017: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-20/us-republican-senate-approves-tax-bill/9277100 .

[2]. Conor Duffy and Roscoe Whalan, “Donald Trump’s tax bill pitched at middle class but rich will take most of the meal”, ABC News, 21 December 2017: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-21/trump-tax-bill-pitched-at-middle-class-but-rich-will-take-most/9278070 .

[3]. “GOP tax bill fact check: how both sides are stretching the truth”, CBS News, 21 December 2017: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gop-tax-overhaul-fact-checking-lopsided-political-arguments/ .

[4]. Sy Mukherjee, “The GOP Tax Bill repeals ObamaCare’s individual mandate. Here’s what it means for you”, Fortune, 20 December 2017: http://fortune.com/2017/12/20/tax-bill-individual-mandate-obamacare/ .

[5]. Gideon Polya, “West Ignores 11 Million Muslim War Deaths & 23 Million Preventable American Deaths Since US Government’s False-flag 9-11 Atrocity”, Countercurrents, 9 September, 2015: https://countercurrents.org/polya090915.htm .

[6]. Gideon Polya, “American Holocaust, Millions Of Untimely American Deaths And $40 Trillion Cost Of Israel To Americans”, Countercurrents, 27 August, 2013: https://countercurrents.org/polya270813.htm .

[7]. Gideon Polya, “Trump’s abolition of ObamaCare will kill 43,000 Americans over 2 Trump terms”, Countercurrents, 16 March 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/03/16/trumps-abolition-of-obamacare-will-kill-43000-americans-over-2-trump-terms/ .

[8]. Gideon Polya, “Western media ignore huge, US-imposed avoidable mortality in Muslim countries subject to Trump travel ban”, Countercurrents, 1 February 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/02/01/western-media-ignore-huge-us-imposed-avoidable-mortality-in-muslim-countries-subject-to-trump-travel-ban/ .

[9]. Sy Mukherjee,  “GOP tax plan would still leave 13 million without health insurance, CBO says”” , 29 November 2017: http://fortune.com/2017/11/29/gop-tax-plan-obamacare-cbo/ .

[10]. “New study finds 45,000 deaths annually linked to lack of health coverage”, Harvard Gazette: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/09/new-study-finds-45000-deaths-annually-linked-to-lack-of-health-coverage/  .

[11]. “Health Insurance”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance  .

[12]. Brian Ellis, ”Social Humanism. A New Metaphysics”,  Routledge , UK , 2012).

[13]. Gideon Polya, “Book Review: “Social Humanism. A New Metaphysics” By Brian Ellis –  Last Chance To Save Planet?”, Countercurrents,  19 August, 2012: https://countercurrents.org/polya190812.htm .

[14]. Brian Ellis, “Rationalism. A critique of pure theory”, Australian Scholarly, Melbourne, 2017.

[15]. Gideon Polya, ““Rationalism” by Brian Ellis slams neoliberalism”,  MWC News, 8 October 2017: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/68564-rationalism-by-brian-ellis.html .

[16]. Gideon Polya, “Review: “Rationalism” by Brian Ellis”, Countercurrents, 14 August 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/08/14/review-rationalism-by-brian-ellis/ .

[17]. Thomas Piketty, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”, Belknap, 2014.

[18]. Gideon Polya, “Key Book Review: “Capital In The Twenty-First Century” By Thomas Piketty”,  Countercurrents,  01 July, 2014: https://countercurrents.org/polya010714.htm .

[19]. Gideon Polya, “4 % Annual Global Wealth Tax To Stop The 17 Million Deaths Annually”, Countercurrents, 27 June, 2014: https://countercurrents.org/polya270614.htm .

[20]. The “1% ON 1%: one percent annual wealth tax on One Percenters”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/1-on-1 .

[21]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, including an avoidable mortality-related history of every country from Neolithic times and is now available for free perusal on the web : http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com.au/  .

[22]. “Nuclear weapons ban, end poverty and reverse climate change”: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/nuclear-weapons-ban .

[23]. “Stop air pollution deaths”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/stop-air-pollution-deaths

[24]. “Too late to avoid global warming catastrophe”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/too-late-to-avoid-global-warming .

[25]. “Are we doomed?”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/are-we-doomed .

[26]. “Climate Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ .

[27]. Gideon Polya, “Australian State Terrorism –  Zero Australian Terrorism Deaths, 1 Million Preventable Australian Deaths & 10 Million Muslims Killed By US Alliance Since 9-11”,  Countercurrents, 23 September, 2014: https://countercurrents.org/polya230914.htm .

[28]. Gideon Polya, “Pro-Zionist, Pro-war, Pro-Opium, War Criminal  Canadian Government Defames Iran & Cuts Diplomatic Links”,  Countercurrents, 10 September, 2012: https://countercurrents.org/polya100912.htm .

[29]. Gideon Polya, “UK Terror Hysteria exposed – Empirical Annual Probability of UK Terrorism Death 1 in 16 million”, Countercurrents, 16 September, 2014: https://countercurrents.org/polya160914.htm .

[30]. Ronald Bailey, “How scared of terrorism should you be?”, Reason.com, 6 September 2011: http://reason.com/archives/2011/09/06/how-scared-of-terrorism-should  .

[31]. “Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/home .

[32]. Gideon Polya, “Paris Atrocity Context: 27 Million Muslim Avoidable  Deaths From Imposed Deprivation In 20 Countries Violated By US Alliance Since 9-11”, Countercurrents, 22 November, 2015: https://countercurrents.org/polya221115.htm .

[33]. “Experts: US did 9-11”: https://sites.google.com/site/expertsusdid911/ .

[34]. Gideon Polya, “Australian ABC and UK BBC fake news through lying by omission”, Countercurrents, 2 May 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/05/02/australian-abc-and-uk-bbc-fake-news-through-lying-by-omission/ .

[35]. Gideon Polya, “Mainstream media: fake news through lying by omission”, Global Research, 2 April 2017: https://www.globalresearch.ca/mainstream-media-fake-news-through-lying-by-omission/5582944 .

Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at a major Australian university for 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003). He has published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contributions “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/australian-complicity-in-iraq-mass-mortality/3369002#transcript

) and “Ongoing Palestinian Genocide” in “The Plight of the Palestinians (edited by William Cook, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2010: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/4047-the-plight-of-the-palestinians.html ). He has published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/  ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/social-economic-history/listen-the-bengal-famine  ;  Gideon Polya: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/home  ; Gideon Polya Writing: https://sites.google.com/site/gideonpolyawriting/ ; Gideon Polya, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_Polya ) . When words fail one can say it in pictures – for images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/ .

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