WABI of Bangor, ME covered Senator Susan Collins’ line of questioning at the Senate HELP Committee hearing on health care affordability, including CAHC president Joel White’s response about who receives ACA subsidies.
Collins asked White if he thinks there should be a reasonable cap that would phase out to avoid a cliff on who qualifies.
“We need to understand that those subsidies above 400 percent of poverty are financed in part by taxes on working Americans,” said White. “Someone working at a bakery, a gas station, a lower income family is paying taxes to subsidize the subsidies for someone making 200, 300, 400-thousand dollars a year. That is not fair so there needs to be some kind of recognition that we can’t tax low-income people to pay for high-income people’s subsidies.”
The second point that White made was there is no asset test on the enhanced subsidies.