Now For the Reality of Healthcare Reform

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BOHICA Obama
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Lower profits will translate into even less jobs with an already record unemployment rate.

AT&T to Book $1 Billion Cost on Health-Care Reform (Update2) - Bloomberg.com

AT&T to Book $1 Billion Cost on Health-Care Reform

By Ian King and Amy Thomson

March 26 (Bloomberg) -- AT&T Inc. will book $1 billion in first-quarter costs, the most of any U.S. company, related to the health-care law signed this week by President Barack Obama.

A change in the tax treatment of Medicare subsidies triggered the non-cash expense, Dallas-based AT&T said today in a regulatory filing.

AT&T, the biggest U.S. phone company, joins Caterpillar Inc., AK Steel Holding Corp. and 3M Co. in recording non-cash expenses against earnings as a result of the law. Health-care costs may shave as much as $14 billion from U.S. corporate profits, according to an estimate by benefits consulting firm Towers Watson. AT&T employed about 281,000 people as of the end of January.

“Companies like AT&T, that have large employee bases, are going to have higher health-care costs and, therefore, lower earnings unless they can negotiate something or offer less to their employees,” ............
 
The Democrats got the results they were looking for. These big businesses NEED to have their profits reduced, and if it takes passing a health care law to do it, then so be it. Less money for big business means more money for the government.

What they don't realize is it also means less money for the economy. Thanks Democrats.

Rick
 
Explained pretty well this morning, here. Why would the media wait until after passing? Maybe those conspiracy folks are onto something:

Hot Air Blog Archive AP: Say, guess what we just found in ObamaCare!

AP: Say, guess what we just found in ObamaCare!
POSTED AT 10:55 AM ON MARCH 26, 2010 BY ED MORRISSEY

Congress passed the bill without knowing what was in it. Barack Obama signed it without reading it. Now it looks as though the Associated Press reported on ObamaCare without comprehending its content. Readers will have to scroll far down to discover that the elimination of a key tax break that kept retirees on company prescription-medication plans will mean dumping millions of seniors onto Medicare — and that the AP ignored it until now:

The health care overhaul will cost U.S. companies billions and make them more likely to drop prescription drug coverage for retirees because of a change in how the government subsidizes those benefits.

In the first two days after the law was signed, three major companies — Deere & Co., Caterpillar Inc. and Valero Energy — said they expect to take a total hit of $265 million to account for smaller tax deductions in the future.

With more than 3,500 companies now getting the tax break as an incentive to keep providing coverage, others are almost certain to announce similar cost increases in the weeks ahead as they sort out the impact of the change.

Figuring out what it will mean for retirees will take longer, but analysts said as many as 2 million could lose the prescription drug coverage provided by their former employers, leaving them to enroll in Medicare’s program.​

Over the past year, I’ve repeatedly warned about the dangers of static tax analysis. That process considers changes in tax policy without considering its impact on behavior. The closure of this “loophole,” as Robert Gibbs called it yesterday, is a perfect example of this stunted thinking.

The Democrats in Congress argued that they would gain $5.4 billion in revenue by eliminating the tax break enacted in the 2003 Medicare Part D program as an incentive for businesses to keep their retirees out of the Medicare system. Instead, they have given businesses a reason to dump their retirees out of the private networks and into the Part D system now. Not only will the expected tax revenues never appear, but now we will have to spend a lot more money covering those prescriptions out of public funds. The seniors in these programs will suffer most of all, as the Part D coverage is vastly inferior to the private plans offered by businesses in the private sector.

Who could have foreseen this? Well, businesses have been trying to get attention to this problem for months, as the AP somewhat belatedly reports:

Industry groups say they lobbied hard against the change in the tax rules before it was added to the health care law over the winter.

“It was in all of our letters and communications that went up to the Hill, and the companies were heavily involved in that,” said Dena Battle, a tax specialist with the National Association of Manufacturers.​

Nationwide, companies would take a $14 billion hit on their financial statements if all of the roughly 3,500 companies receiving the subsidies continued to do so, according to a study by Towers Watson, a human resources consulting firm.

For months, businesses have warned about the problem, and for months, Democrats have claimed this clause as a $5.4 billion revenue source. One might think that the media would be interested in puncturing some bad assumptions. Apparently not.
 
It will drive even more jobs offshore.

Indeed


While the contentious political battle over the new healthcare law continues in the United States, here in India, the outsourcing industry is seeing it as a boon for business and is salivating over its prospects.

Indian companies are working with American insurers handling back-office operations, including claims processing, supply management and transcription services.

The extension of healthcare to 32 million additional Americans over the next decade will mean the need for those services will grow, executives here said.

“The healthcare reform bill is a very, very big opportunity for us,” said Ananda Mukerji, managing director of Firstsource Solutions. About 40 per cent of the company’s business comes dozens of American hospitals and insurance companies, he said.

“A big part of what we do for the American companies is eligibility assessment services, where we assess eligibility of a patient for the Medicare program. We also work with hospitals to submit claims and enroll new patients. With the new bill, all this work will increase.”

The new law requires some insurance companies to devote more of the premiums they receive to direct health care and away from administrative costs.

“The healthcare ... law will create a huge pressure on American insurance companies to cut costs,” said Rana Mehta, vice president of health care at Technopak, an independent consultancy firm in Gurgaon. “Ultimately it is a business decision to outsource. All this new work has to go somewhere, and India will gain.”


US healthcare expansion means big business for India- Hindustan Times
 
Looks like ObamaCare is going to make less on the capital gains and investment taxes than it had planned. Earnings drops are not going to help stock prices.

As if anyone with an ounce of economic sense couldn't see it coming.
 
so with the companies sending the jobs overseas, obamie will collect less and less and less federal income tax.. who are they gonna look to for their sugar titties??
 
Looks like ObamaCare is going to make less on the capital gains and investment taxes than it had planned. Earnings drops are not going to help stock prices.

As if anyone with an ounce of economic sense couldn't see it coming.

Add to that to small businesses that will not dare hire and expand beyond a certain limit lest they be treated like the big boys. I spoke with three such owners this past week who are in that precise position and will postpone indefinitely their plans to expand. Probably a few hundred jobs are lost right there. And that's just three of the thousands of small businesses out there.

Add to that the non-healthcare related provisions buried in the bill that is expanding government control over all our lives. The federal takeover of the student loan program, for instance, which will cost thousands of jobs in the private sector even as it swells the bureaucracy.

152 new bureacracies and boards will be installed to administer government controlled healthcare.

And many thousands of new IRS agents will be hired to enforce compliance with the 'buy insurance or else' mandates.

One of our family doctors--we've been with him for 20 years--says that he will likely take early retirement rather than endure the nightmare of Obamacare. His two sons, both in pre-med, will likely switch their majors as the medical profession looks much less attractive to them now.

And these things are just the very tip of the iceberg.
 
Looks like ObamaCare is going to make less on the capital gains and investment taxes than it had planned. Earnings drops are not going to help stock prices.

As if anyone with an ounce of economic sense couldn't see it coming.

Yep, hearing it in the desperation of the liberal posters, they are beginning to recognize there are problems. But they, 'meant well.' Gag me. Reminds me of how the welfare state caused the destruction of the black nuclear family. The idea of giving help to poor families without a 'man' couldn't figure out that men would disappear from families? I've always believed this was an example of unintended consequences, but am seeing in the case of HCP the problems were obvious to all who would look.
 
Looks like ObamaCare is going to make less on the capital gains and investment taxes than it had planned. Earnings drops are not going to help stock prices.

As if anyone with an ounce of economic sense couldn't see it coming.

Yep, hearing it in the desperation of the liberal posters, they are beginning to recognize there are problems. But they, 'meant well.' Gag me. Reminds me of how the welfare state caused the destruction of the black nuclear family. The idea of giving help to poor families without a 'man' couldn't figure out that men would disappear from families? I've always believed this was an example of unintended consequences, but am seeing in the case of HCP the problems were obvious to all who would look.

Yes, not only did the 'well intentioned' destroy the black nuclear family but the poor white nuclear family as well--divorce rates sky rocketed--out of wedlock births sky rocketed--and among many other unintended negative consequences, child poverty rates went off the charts.

Meanwhile in the interest of urban renewal, the well-intentioned bull dozed vital, thriving old neighborhoods forcing the former residents into shiny new government projects. Unfortunately the vitality of the old neighborhoods didn't survive the transition and within a couple of decades, those projects were rat infested slums full of mostly anti social and permanently unemployed people.

So how much do you think they have thought through the possible unintended negative consequences of this newest and far more massive and far reaching well-intentioned social engineering endeavor? We've already identified many that they weren't even willing to talk about.

And who among us believes there won't be many many more?
 
Lower profits will translate into even less jobs with an already record unemployment rate.

AT&T to Book $1 Billion Cost on Health-Care Reform (Update2) - Bloomberg.com

AT&T to Book $1 Billion Cost on Health-Care Reform

By Ian King and Amy Thomson

March 26 (Bloomberg) -- AT&T Inc. will book $1 billion in first-quarter costs, the most of any U.S. company, related to the health-care law signed this week by President Barack Obama.

A change in the tax treatment of Medicare subsidies triggered the non-cash expense, Dallas-based AT&T said today in a regulatory filing.

AT&T, the biggest U.S. phone company, joins Caterpillar Inc., AK Steel Holding Corp. and 3M Co. in recording non-cash expenses against earnings as a result of the law. Health-care costs may shave as much as $14 billion from U.S. corporate profits, according to an estimate by benefits consulting firm Towers Watson. AT&T employed about 281,000 people as of the end of January.

“Companies like AT&T, that have large employee bases, are going to have higher health-care costs and, therefore, lower earnings unless they can negotiate something or offer less to their employees,” ............

This is only the tip, the idiots who elected him couldn't see this if you engraved it on their sunglasses, he is doing exactly what he was branded with.....

We better turn out in mass come November or it will get progressively worst, he will not stop his agenda.....
 
I've spoken to a few small business owners that talk about retirement or downsizing. Making 250K has gone from respectable to detestable. People don't hate on the 100K guy. Could be anger and hot air, but it's heartbreaking listening to successful business people discussing ways to work and earn less.

And of course the uber rich will just find better ways to hide it.

Bizarro world.
 
I've spoken to a few small business owners that talk about retirement or downsizing. Making 250K has gone from respectable to detestable. People don't hate on the 100K guy. Could be anger and hot air, but it's heartbreaking listening to successful business people discussing ways to work and earn less.

And of course the uber rich will just find better ways to hide it.

Bizarro world.

AGain, how many jobs? The economy is going to make today look good.
 
Speaking of unintended negative consequences, excerpts from Thomas Sowell's recent essay:

A Point of No Return?
Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, March 23, 2010

With the passage of the legislation allowing the federal government to take control of the medical care system of the United States, a major turning point has been reached in the dismantling of the values and institutions of America. . . .

. . . .If the current legislation does not entail the transmission of all our individual medical records to Washington, it will take only an administrative regulation or, at most, an Executive Order of the President, to do that.

With politicians now having not only access to our most confidential records, and having the power of granting or withholding medical care needed to sustain ourselves or our loved ones, how many people will be bold enough to criticize our public servants, who will in fact have become our public masters? . . . .

. . . .The voters will have had no experience with the actual, concrete effect of the government takeover of medical care at the time of either the 2010 Congressional elections or the 2012 Presidential elections. All they will have will be conflicting rhetoric-- and you can depend on the mainstream media to go along with the rhetoric of those who passed this medical care bill. . . .

. . . .What will it matter if Obama's current approval rating is below 50 percent among the current voting public, if he can ram through new legislation to create millions of new voters by granting citizenship to illegal immigrants? That can be enough to make him a two-term President, who can appoint enough Supreme Court justices to rubber-stamp further extensions of his power.

When all these newly minted citizens are rounded up on election night by ethnic organization activists and labor union supporters of the administration, that may be enough to salvage the Democrats' control of Congress as well.

The last opportunity that current American citizens may have to determine who will control Congress may well be the election in November of this year. Off-year elections don't usually bring out as many voters as Presidential election years. But the 2010 election may be the last chance to halt the dismantling of America. It can be the point of no return.
Thomas Sowell
 
The Democrats got the results they were looking for. These big businesses NEED to have their profits reduced, and if it takes passing a health care law to do it, then so be it. Less money for big business means more money for the government.

What they don't realize is it also means less money for the economy. Thanks Democrats.

Rick


the reason the HCR bill will cost so much is because companies like At&T that provide drug benefits for retirees because of an incentive that allows them to write it off and gives them a small subsidy to provide the benefit are losing it.

This particular benny keeps people off the medicare drug program and costs the government half of what it would if all these retirees were not getting the drug benefit via their employer.

So now AT&T will just end that retirement benefit and toss all those people who are not currently on the medicare drug program into the mix thus costing the government way more money that it does not have.

I believe this is called cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.
 

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