The Affordable Care Act’s tax increases were concentrated among the wealthiest 1% of Americans, while its benefits were spread broadly among the poorest 40%, according to new data from the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO examined how the law affected household incomes in 2014, the first year many of its key provisions took effect.
The bottom line: At least as far as this analysis goes, the ACA helped more people than it hurt. Whether you want to call it “redistributing wealth” or “reducing income inequality,” the ACA achieved it. Or, in CBO’s words, the law “made household income more evenly distributed.”