Unintended consequences of the healthcare bill...

You want to know what companies are going to do if Obamacare is not repealed? Read on, if you dare.

Shocking in its candor, yet not surprising at all. These people must be stopped at all costs. The key is the young people, so keep telling them. My kids know they are cut off FOR LIFE if they even THINK of voting for the Socialist party...thx for the info Andy Murph!


Paul



-----Original Message-----
From: MURPHY, ANDREW
To: osenpaul
Sent: Thu, May 6, 2010 8:34 am
Subject: RE: Happy Cinco de Mayo, Wisconsin style!!!!


Thought you would be interested in this. Unintended consequences of the healthcare bill...

http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/05/news/companies/dropping_benefits.fortune/index.htm

Documents reveal AT&T, Verizon, others, thought about dropping employer-sponsored benefits - Fortune (e)

The great mystery surrounding the historic health care bill is how the corporations that provide coverage for most Americans -- coverage they know and prize -- will react to the new law's radically different regime of subsidies, penalties, and taxes. Now, we're getting a remarkable inside look at the options AT&T, Deere, and other big companies are weighing to deal with the new legislation. 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. Hence, health-care reform risks becoming a victim of unintended consequences. Amazingly, the corporate documents that prove this point became public because of a different set of unintended consequences: they told a story far different than the one the politicians who demanded them expected. Why the write-downs happened but the hearings didn't In the days after President Obama signed the bill on March 24, a number of companies announced big write downs due to some fiscal changes it ushered in. AT&T and Verizon took well-publicized charges of around $1 billion. The announcements greatly annoyed Representative Henry Waxman, who accused the companies of using the big numbers to exaggerate health care reform's burden on employers. Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, demanded that they turn over their confidential memos, and summoned their top executives for hearings. But Waxman didn't simply request documents related to the write down issue. He wanted every document the companies created that discussed what the bill would do to their most uncontrollable expense: healthcare costs. The request yielded 1,100 pages of documents from four major employers: AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar and Deere. 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." ...Nowhere in the five-page report did the majority staff mention that not one, but all four companies, were weighing the costs and benefits of dropping their coverage. AT&T produced a PowerPoint slide entitled "Medical Cost Versus No Coverage Penalty." A document prepared for Verizon by consulting firm Hewitt Resources stated, "Even though the proposed assessments [on companies that do not provide health care] are material, they are modest when compared to the average cost of health care," and that to avoid costs and regulations, "employers may consider exiting the health care market and send employees to the Exchanges." (Under the new bill, employees who lose their coverage will purchase health care through state-run exchanges.) In a statement to Fortune, Verizon said it is not, "considering or even contemplating" the plans laid out in the report, though records show the company did send the report to its board shortly after the reform plan was passed by Congress. Second, the bill imposes new taxes on drug manufacturers, medical device-makers, and health insurance providers. Hewitt leaves little doubt Verizon will be paying for them: "These provisions are fees or excise taxes that will be shifted to employers through increased fees and rates." AT&T revealed that it spends $2.4 billion a year on coverage for its almost 300,000 active employees, a number that would fall to $600 million if AT&T stopped providing health care coverage and paid the penalty option instead. AT&T declined comment.