Then for good measure, the Senate added the removal of the single-payer mandate that required all Americans to take out health insurance. Without this mandate, by most estimates, 13 million Americans would drop out of coverage. As many low-risk individuals left the insurance plans, the premiums for those who did remain would surge. DeLong’s fears were amply confirmed. In its redistributive impact and the scale of the giveaway, 2017 stood in comparison with the huge Reagan tax cut of 1981 and those of Bush in 2001 and 2003.66
