Billionaire investor Warren Buffett on Saturday criticized the bill House Republicans passed this week aimed at repealing and replacing ObamaCare, calling it “a huge tax cut for guys like me.”
Speaking at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholders meeting in Omaha, Neb., Buffett argued that healthcare costs – rather than high taxes – were the biggest problem facing American businesses.
“Medical costs are the tapeworm of American economic competitiveness,” he said, according to The New York Times.
Buffett said his federal income taxes would have gone down 17 percent last year if the GOP bill was in effect.
“So it is a huge tax cut for guys like me,” he said, according to Reuters. “And when there’s a tax cut, either the deficit goes up or they get the taxes from somebody else.”
Buffett, a Democrat who is close to former President Barack Obama, also said that Trump’s proposed tax plan – which includes slashing the corporate tax rate to 15 percent – would be “to the benefit of shareholders.”
Buffett has previously hit Trump for not releasing his tax returns.
The House on Thursday narrowly passed the GOP bill aimed at repealing and replacing ObamaCare, which Democrats and outside groups have criticized as benefitting wealthier Americans compared to the Affordable Care Act.
Senate Republicans have vowed major changes on the healthcare plan, with a number of moderate senators voicing objections to provisions rolling back ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion, among other areas.
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