[sportutegrl]

Businesses were not taxed on money they spent to provide prescription drug coverage to retired employees. How is that a subsidy? This 'subsidy' kept the retired employees covered by their employer instead of medicare part D, saving the government money.

Or, to put it another way, Obama care will tax something that is not now taxed.

[maddogconservative]

No you are confused.

Before obamacare, and after the bushcare the system was the following:

1) The American Taxpayer gave companies a 28% subsidy on the cost of their retirees’ plan.
2) The Company could deduct the entire cost of the plan from their taxes.

Obamacare is taxing the subsidy. If we are going to tax unemployment benefits, if we are going to tax Social Security benefits, then by God we should tax a subsidy to employers.

And by an accounting quirk, when a company lose a perpetual income stream, they have to write it off immediately. It doesn’t really effect the company.

For example -
Caterpillar is at a 52 week high and they took a 90 million hit with the loss of your tax dollars.