Big impact on income gap is health law's new angle

Maybe the health care law was about wealth transfer, after all. New research shows that the Affordable Care Act will significantly boost the economic fortunes of those in the bottom one-fifth of the income ladder while slightly reducing average incomes on the rungs above. Economists at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution, a Washington public policy center, found an average increase of about 6 percent in the incomes of the poorest 20 percent of the United States, meaning those making below approximately $20,600 a year. The study used a broad definition of income that counts the value of health insurance, which is not normally measured by Census Bureau income statistics.