Posted on 03/31/2010 2:17:20 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
NEW YORK (AFP) – The sweeping reform of the US health-care system could exact a high price on some businesses and deprive two million Americans of health insurance, industry and union leaders say.
President Barack Obama on Tuesday signed a final, adjusted version of the health care reform bill into law, capping a historic overhaul that extends health insurance to an additional 32 million Americans.
Congress, controlled by Obama's Democratic Party, passed the legislation without a single vote from Republicans, ..
On Friday, telecommunications giant AT&T said it would take a one-billion-dollar charge in the first quarter of 2010 to cover changes in US health-care law.
AT&T and other firms have pointed out the financial impact of the reform, which includes the elimination of a tax break to companies providing medication coverage to their retired employees.
Heavy equipment maker Caterpillar said it had set aside a charge of 100 million dollars and manufacturing powerhouse 3M estimated a provision of up to 90 million dollars.
Economist Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, however, appeared skeptical about the swift corporate announcements.
"It's hard to see immediately, two seconds after the bill, that they have to take these charges," he said. "How much is this an issue of trying to establish a base for which they can raise prices in the future?"
For Brian Bethune, chief US financial economist at IHS Global Insight, the elimination of the tax break is "just one piece of the jigsaw puzzle" of reform and noted that "other corporate taxes are buried in this bill."
David Wyss, a Standard & Poor's economist, acknowledged that health-care reform "will raise cost for employers" but stressed the increase would not be "that big."
The reform "applies only to heavily unionized companies," Wyss said, where employees enjoy contract-protected benefits.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
This guy is asinine in his comments. Don't you know the corporations have figured this all out months before they made they came out with their remarks! Asinine remarks!
“Economist Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, however, appeared skeptical about the swift corporate announcements. “It’s hard to see immediately, two seconds after the bill, that they have to take these charges,” he said. “
How on God’s green earth is this man qualified as an economist? I am no where near an ‘economist’ and I can tell you how! They know the tax break will disappear, so they total up (and yes, they can do this fairly quickly with this new fangled thing called COMPUTERS) how many employees they are getting the tax credit for and multiply that times the amount of credit they received. Wala, they have a total of money they will lose this year because it’s not in their projections earlier made based on RECEIVING the now GONE tax credit.
Moron.
I’m guessing this guy is an ‘economist’ the same way that Barry Lynn is a ‘reverend.’
“MAY”????? If your are considering retirement....forget it. If this health care sticks, you’ll never be able to retire.
Naroof? Woof, Woof! Feed him to the hogs, the Muzzie dog!
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