They Face Higher Costs Now That Premium Tax Credits Have Expired Even As Healthcare Firms, Execs Get Richer from Trump-GOP Tax Policies 

On this 16th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)–signed into law March 23, 2010–a million Latinos are at risk of losing their ACA health coverage thanks to Republican healthcare cuts. Meanwhile, big healthcare companies and their CEOs are enjoying huge tax cuts from those same policies, according to an analysis by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF). The 2017 Trump-GOP tax law that was permanently extended last summer gave big tax cuts to corporations and wealthy individuals, but Republicans refused to extend tax credits that make healthcare affordable for tens of millions of working people.

“Despite ample warning last year, Donald Trump’s Republican Party let the ACA enhanced premium tax credits expire and raised healthcare costs for millions. Now on the anniversary of the ACA, when we should be celebrating, Latino families face massively higher healthcare costs even as big healthcare companies and their well-paid CEOs enjoy huge tax cuts,” said David Kass, ATF’s executive director. “We need to prioritize reversing those decisions by restoring the premium tax credits that made buying insurance possible for millions of families and fund it by revoking tax cuts for the nation’s biggest corporations and wealthiest households.”

“Most people get flowers or chocolate for anniversaries, congressional Republicans gave working families higher health insurance premiums,” said Leor Tal, Unrig Our Economy’s Campaign Director. “Working people–including a million Latinos–are getting crushed by the Republican health care crisis. The only people with something to celebrate today are the billionaires who got tax breaks, paid for by taking away healthcare from hard-working Americans.”

The ACA tax credits that Republicans chose to let expire have more than doubled enrollment in the ACA, with some of the biggest gains made by Latinos, whose participation in the ACA marketplace leapt by nearly 160% over the first three years of the enhanced program. About three times as many Latinos got insurance through the ACA in 2024 as did four years earlier.

The average ACA premium was expected to rise by a thousand dollars this year with the expiration of the premium tax credits. And that’s an average: some increases were expected to be much steeper depending on household size and age. A 60-year-old married couple making $85,000 a year, as an example, would somehow have to absorb a premium hike of nearly  $25,000.

These big increases in health-coverage prices come as the labor market weakens after a year in which the job growth in industries in which Latinos are concentrated collapsed. The combination of GOP policies and billionaire tax cuts plus Trump’s chaotic tariffs are expected to cost workers in heavily Latino industries an average of about $1,500 in higher costs this year. Many grocery prices continued to climb during Trump’s first year back in office.

The Republican failure to extend the enhanced premium tax credits accompanied cuts to other healthcare programs, including a trillion dollar reduction over 10 years in spending on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Up to several million Latinos could lose Medicaid or CHIP coverage because of the new law.

The uninsured rate among Latinos is estimated to rise this year by 17% (from 24% to 28%). Those newly uninsured would be among the almost five million people overall the Urban Institute calculates will lose health coverage this year because the premium tax credits were allowed to expire.

Altogether 20 million enrollees in the ACA marketplace are contending with overwhelming price increases in their insurance premiums because of the Republican tax policies. Base prices for ACA coverage–the sticker price before premium tax credits reduce the net price for consumers–have jumped by over 20% this year.

As Latino families struggle, healthcare corporations are enjoying big tax cuts. Among America’s largest healthcare corporations, seven of them collectively saved an estimated $34 billion in taxes over the period 2018-24 because of the 40% cut in the corporate tax rate offered by the 2017 Trump-GOP tax law.

PROFITS SOARED BUT TAXES STAYED THE SAME UNDER 2017 CORPORATE-FRIENDLY TRUMP-GOP TAX LAW

Source: Americans for Tax Fairness

CEOs at these same companies have also benefited personally from the GOP tax law. Reductions in individual tax rates–for top bosses, the most important is the cut in the highest rate–could have slashed their taxes by millions of dollars each. (See Methodology for a discussion of individual tax-savings estimates.)

The CEOs at 19 top healthcare firms could have collectively saved over $100 million in taxes over the first seven years of the Republican tax law. Those possible tax savings will continue in the future now that the law has been permanently extended. The chief executive of pharmaceutical giant Moderna was the biggest possible tax cut beneficiary, perhaps avoiding nearly $19 million in taxes on his mammoth seven-year compensation of almost $720 million.

CORPORATE HEALTHCARE CEOs COULD HAVE SAVED MILLIONS EACH FROM GOP TAX CUTS

Source: Americans for Tax Fairness

Executives of for-profit corporations were not the only potential recipients of big tax savings. Top officials of healthcare nonprofits are also compensated handsomely and so stand to gain from the GOP tax law. At seven of the country’s largest nonprofit healthcare organizations, the 15 highest-paid employees might have collectively saved between three and eight million dollars due to the Republican law. (See Methodology.)

NONPROFIT EXECUTIVES ALSO BENEFIT FROM THE 2017 TRUMP-GOP TAX CUTS

Source: Americans for Tax Fairness

METHODOLOGY: Public corporations and non-profit organizations regularly report the compensation of their top executives, but individual tax return data is private. Actual personal tax savings from the lowered individual rates would depend on the filing status and taxable income of each taxpayer in each year. Taxable income in turn depends on deductions, credits and other adjustments to gross income. Tax savings shown here are the maximum possible.