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Documents Reveal AT&T, Verizon, Others, Thought About Dropping Employer-sponsored Benefits
EXCERPT:
AT&T, Verizon, others, thought about dropping health plans - May. 5, 2010
Why the write-downs happened but the hearings didn't
AT&T, Verizon, others, thought about dropping health plans - May. 5, 2010
EXCERPT:
Internal documents recently reviewed by Fortune, originally requested by Congress, show what the bill's critics predicted, and what its champions dreaded: many large companies are examining a course that was heretofore unthinkable, dumping the health care coverage they provide to their workers in exchange for paying penalty fees to the government.
That would dismantle the employer-based system that has reigned since World War II. It would also seem to contradict President Obama's statements that Americans who like their current plans could keep them. And as we'll see, it would hugely magnify the projected costs for the bill, which controls deficits only by assuming that America's employers would remain the backbone of the nation's health care system.
AT&T, Verizon, others, thought about dropping health plans - May. 5, 2010
Why the write-downs happened but the hearings didn't
The request yielded 1,100 pages of documents from four major employers: AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar and Deere (DE, Fortune 500). No sooner did the Democrats on the Energy Committee read them than they abruptly cancelled the hearings. On April 14, the Committee's majority staff issued a memo stating that the write downs were "proper and in accordance with SEC rules." The committee also stated that the memos took a generally sunny view of the new legislation. The documents, said the Democrats' memo, show that "the overall impact of health reform on large employers could be beneficial."
AT&T, Verizon, others, thought about dropping health plans - May. 5, 2010