Hully Gee, just imagine that!
Posted on 03/26/2010 6:10:34 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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.
ObamaCare is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get. Sorry Forrest.
These were not unintended consequences but intentional harm to Americans.
The list, ping
Some of us tried to warn the OBoZo voters and supporters, but ...
The new slogan of the marxist in chief: Hope in Chains.
No doubt this was no considered in what was put in front of the cbo for scoring maobamacare.
This is going to literally be the straw that breaks the camels back in this nation. God help us all.
Yep...all part of the plan.
Designed to force companies to drop retirees and cause retirees to clamor for single payer.
Hully Gee, just imagine that!
being one of those retirees...with health issues requiring expensive medication...well i can not (at this time) say what i really feel
America — a great idea, didn’t last.
OK Republicans: RUN ON REPEAL!!
My father never had any misbillings from his medical insurance provider until they created Medicare, and the he found misbilling after misbilling coming in from Medicare.
I find it incomprehensible why the Democrats wanted to do this ~ it's totally irrational. Only insane people could have done this ~ brutal, evil, insane idiots.
Obama hates America just like Oprah. They both agreed that to change it it must destroyed.
Well, it is past time to demand that Obama account for his documents, and; all the lawyers he hides behind must be identified. Hell, fools voted for a man who hates America.
I guess we’ll all just have to go out and collect medicinal herbs for seniors.
It is still legal isn’t it?
Morissey, you should be smarter than that.
This is unreal.
If this stands, Americans have been duped more effectively than the Russians and the East Germans were once by the Communists. Please tell me that I am hallucinating. This is exactly what happened in the pseudo democracies established at Yalta by Saint FDR in Eastern Europe. Nominal opposition parties that always lost the vote while the murderous Communists ruled as the RAT Party is ruling today.
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