Re: Swing Votes

Exactly. And now American industry is reacting to the effect on them, stating, like AT&T did ( and Caterpillar, and Verizon, and many others, even in the few days since it passed ) that they will be taking HUGE write-downs ( $ 1 BILLION for ATT ), laying people off, cutting health benefits for employees and retirees, etc, because of the expenses Brobama and the Dems have invented for them.

I bet it EASILY exceeds $ 100 BILLION per year before it's done. Guess who's pocket al that is going to come out of ? Not theirs, count on DAT !. Their prices will all increase, we will all pay more, their employees will get LESS health coverage and pay MORE for it.

And Henry Stinking Waxman aka Rat Boi has the godl plated balls to 'demand' that they come to Congress, submit to an anal exam of their records for the last 10 years, "..including but not limited to all emails between top executives that realte to health care issues", etc. He claims 'This couldn't possibly be true, our staff said it wouldn't hurt businesses and we beleived them even thgouh we don't really know what's in the bill'.

And if the Dems actually cared what the American people think.

The backlash is going to be AMAZING, as more and more people find their insurance at work going up or being cancelled, their premiums doubling, their taxes going up, prices of goods going up, etc etc. All to pay for the multi-trillion dollar 'wealth redistribution via health insurance' of the left wing lunatics and Brobama.

Novemebr might well make 1994 look like a practice drill.

--
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Paul ( pjm @ pobox . com ) - remove spaces to email me
'Some days, it's just not worth chewing through the restraints.'
'With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine.'
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Whenever a Liberal utters the term "Common Sense approach"....grab your
wallet, your ass, and your guns because the sombitch is about to do
something damned nasty to all three of them.

in

or

effect

Note: That $1B AT&T charge is against this quarter's profits. So, the new, better health care is costing them $4B a year, to start. The costs scream skyward later, as the plans start paying benefits.

$4B, hmmm. At $100K / per job, that's 40,000 jobs, destroyed.

hink.

Ah but they did care, a lot. That's why they had to pass it quickly, on the sly, before people found out, before it could be analyzed, before members faced their constituents over the Easter break.

I dug up the exact quote: =93But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it =96 away from the fog of the controversy.=94 -- Sen. Pelosi

ple

True, but the worst of those things will happen slowly, and not for several years, i.e., after Mr. Obama's reelection. First the massage, then we get the bill. So to speak...

-- Cheers, James Arthur

Does that pass the silly test? Are you sure this isn't a one-time charge against quarterly profits? A gigabuck is still a lot of money, but $4B/year forever is a bit high, no?

ge

/year

Can't tell--the news just came out Friday, with no press releases I can find. We'll have to wait for AT&T to explain. (Next quarterly report is due Apr. 21.)

The change results from new tax rules under Obamacare for prescription benefits to retirees. AT&T has 283,000 employees, and who knows how many retired workers? If they've 1 worker per retiree, $4B would be $14K/worker, which seems unlikely. $1B would be $3.5K per.

"AT&T said that it was also looking into changing the health care benefits it offers because of the law. Analysts say retirees could lose the prescription drug coverage provided by their former employers as a result of the overhaul." --AP

--
Update: I downloaded their '09 report.  Benefits are discussed in note
11.  Yes, $4B looks silly.  From footnote 1 on the Net Benefit Cost
table, pg. 82, it looks like the Medicare Part D (prescriptions) tax
change impact should only be $250M / yr.  Apparently they foresee
further adverse Obamacare impacts.

Again, we'll have to wait for their explanation.

Actually, as I heard it analyzed, the $1B was a total charge over 30 years of additional costs due to changes in the bill, and doesn't start till 2013 when those changes occur...

Charlie

You sly little CongressCritter, you :-)

--
Click here every day to feed an animal that needs you today !!!
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Paul ( pjm @ pobox . com ) - remove spaces to email me
'Some days, it's just not worth chewing through the restraints.'
'With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine.'
HVAC/R program for Palm PDA's 
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Whenever a Liberal utters the term "Common Sense approach"....grab your
wallet, your ass, and your guns because the sombitch is about to do
something damned nasty to all three of them.

he effect

That doesn't add up either. AT&T's health care costs are increased at least $250M per year just for retirees (i.e., $1B every four years for that one item alone).

AT&T will certainly have higher costs for their 283,000 employees too, so $1B a year is entirely possible, or more.

We'll see.

So the good news is $1B AFA(we)CT, and that only destroys 10,000 jobs. That's 30,000 jobs created or saved, right?

-- Cheers, James Arthur

Ok, full explanation as I heard it...

This charge is only for a change in the prescription drug benefits. Presently, the gov. lets them write off 100% of the cost of drugs by its employees, PLUS there is a 25% (exact percentage not in memory... ;-) ) subsidy payment from the gov. What is changing is that they can have one, or the other, but not both. (in 2013!) So, this is the charge that they can see now. They don't know yet what other changes will happed...

Charlie

10,000 useless jobs evidently. If they can trim 10-30 thousand jobs and still operate they didn't need the people anyway. I promise not to use AT&T so the rest of the guys and gals aren't over worked.

No more free drugs??? The horror of it all.

Not man enough to be sent to prison? That's pathetic.

--
Lead free solder is Belgium's version of 'Hold my beer and watch this!'

I would *suspect* that the $1B is the current value of the additional drug charges over the next 30 years. Or perhaps the current value of the tax on the benefit. Or perhaps just the increased tax for the quarter. ;-/

o the effect

be

the

Yes, that's about right. Here's the footnote on pg. 82 of AT&T's 2009 Annual Report:

"1. During 2009, 2008 and 2007, the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 reduced postretirement benefit cost by $255, $263 and $342. [...]" (numbers are millions of dollars)

That deduction is going away. It was meant as an incentive for employers to continue offering Rx benefits for retirees, thus saving Medicare from paying those same benefits.

Getting rid of subsidies is fine with me. This change is, however, part of the uncounted cost of Obamacare--they're shifting the full retiree Rx cost to the private sector, who will now have to pay 100 cents of every Rx benefit rather than the 70-odd cents they used to pay.

So, the cost of doing business is *higher*, but it counts as a

*savings* (to the government) in the CBO figure.

One assumes that AT&T has to apply this to the pension funds of current workers too, if Rx benefits are part of their retirement packages, and set aside additional reserves for the increased future cost anticipated. Or, just chop the benefit.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

Not necessarily. Many employers will simply discontinue coverage and Obamacare will have to pick up the whole deal.

...or discontinue retirement benefits.

" snipped-for-privacy@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Which is exactly what Obama wants. it leads to "single payer";the gov't,and he knows it.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com

Those employers will be fined. There's a fine for not providing insurance, $2k IIRC, and another fine for providing health care not meeting Obamacare requirements, $3k IIRC. OTOH if you provide too good a policy there's a fine for that too--it's taxed at 40%.

Of course the $2k fine is less than providing medical insurance, so discontinuing coverage is a good option. Avoids hassles.

Just to hit that nail again, Obamacare doesn't save, it costs more, roughly 17%. No surprise--we'll be paying for 10% more people, with fewer limitations, and to cover more conditions. Much of the government's increase is hidden with gimmicks, and by making ordinary folks pay directly (mandates).

Yep.

Um, retirees are no longer employees. AIUI, this write-down was for retirees part-D drug coverage, so they're covered under Medicare anyway.

te:

Oh, I thought you were switching to talking about current employees, where dumping health insurance entirely starts to make sense too.

The Senate bill has a big spiel about how health insurance is commerce, they have Constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce, and if you don't buy insurance you're hurting suppliers in other states, therefore they can forcibly require you to engage in commerce. (Subtitle F, Sec. 1501(a)(1-2), pg. 320)

Here's my parallel theory: we all use toilet paper, toilet paper crosses state lines, and the people who don't buy their own are driving up the price for the rest of us--we're all paying for THEM. So, we need toilet paper insurance. Mandatory, of course.

It was for retirees getting drug coverage from their AT&T retirement instead of being foisted on the public Part-D dole. A grateful Medicare Part-D was kicking in a 28% share--better than paying 100%.

Obamacare eliminates that incentive.

tml

-- Cheers, James Arthur

It's amazing - they force individuals in states to buy a product in their state, from a private company in that state, seeing as the individual CAN NOT, by law, purchase it outside of the state ( by law they can not ! ), and call it 'intra-state commerce'.

If this stands, the Commerce Clause becomes a nullity, a bad joke, instead of a restraint on the Federal government.

--
Click here every day to feed an animal that needs you today !!!
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Paul ( pjm @ pobox . com ) - remove spaces to email me
'Some days, it's just not worth chewing through the restraints.'
'With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine.'
HVAC/R program for Palm PDA's 
Free demo online at www.pmilligan.net/palm/
Free 'People finder' program now at www.pmilligan.net/finder.htm

Whenever a Liberal utters the term "Common Sense approach"....grab your
wallet, your ass, and your guns because the sombitch is about to do
something damned nasty to all three of them.

Pray for Obama  Psalm 109:8