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Ok, I have no idea what you're talking about right now. There is a mandate in this bill, that's what you're objecting to. Medicare is one of the ways to meet that mandate. For-profit or non-profit is also a moot point because the system will be massively abused either way.

It's called context, Chandos. Ok, the 'doom all America' was over the top, I was feeling dramatic. The 'you just killed the entire medical industry' was talking about the existing American medical industry, since we're talking about an American law changing the way the existing American medical industry works.

1.) that would still keep it out of the reach of most people, which means it still wouldn't be an option for most people.
2.) with the mandate comes a restriction from raising premiums based on age, so that problem isn't likely to continue

My father, the psychologist, has told me his side. Normally, he can charge about $100/hour. Some of the larger insurance companies may bring it down to $60/hour. Medicare pays him $20/hour. My father has a doctorate, a license, many years of experience, and is one of the better known psychologists in the region. My wife is a resident with her Master's, almost no experience, and no license, and she charges $20/hour. In short, Medicare pays one of the top professionals in the field as if he were an intern. I'm assuming their payments are standardized, so they pay other top professionals in the field the same.

Yes, which is what I said when I reviewed it. I'm not entirely satisfied, and I still want to know why the gov't feels it needs a federal medical database if they don't have any system to use it (no UHC, not even a real PO), but it's looking pretty good. I think they've avoided the worst of the pit-falls.

 

I already answered this above:

With such a database, doctors could look up your medical history when you make an appointment to see them. So if your primary care physician refers you to a specialist, you don't have to worry whether or not the necessary records got transferred or not. They've implemented such systems in other countries, and it does show to increase efficiency.

 

So you agree that the mandate is a bad idea? I thought you were for it? Ok, now I have no idea what you are talking about.

Are directing that at me, or T2? This is what I was responding to:

That's not your post, NOG.

So you use the word "killed" instead of "changed" or "reformed?" Context has nothing to do with your poor choice of language.

Well, yes of course, unless you are ready for single-payer. You are preaching to the choir here. Did you miss that part where I mentioned that I would like to see a system like Canada or Sweden has? I was talking about making changes within the existing framework that we have now in this instance.

Medicare is a government run program; it's rates are set by the government.

I thought the national database was in the American Recovery Act and not in the Pateint Protection Act of 2010? But I could be wrong.

 

Aldeth, I think the entire issue of how health care reform will be paid for is quite murky. It could well be a large company like AT&T will have an additional billion dollar expense from the law. But that is not going to affect the bottom line of AT&T or its shareholders -- the customers will pay two billion dollars to cover the expense and still give AT&T the margins they want.

 

I am one of those ATT customers. And I've been a good customer of theirs for years. I'll be watching them. It's no secret that ATT was a George Bush loving conservative company. And had to go to court for allowing Bush and Cheney to have access to customer records and phone calls. They also funded Freedomworks, the radical conservative activist group during the so-called "townhall meetings" last summer. So they have a credibility gap in regards to how neutral they are regarding HC reform to begin with. That doesn't mean they are wrong, only that they have their own political agenda. I think the corporate stooge who wrote that blog, which Snook posted, pretty much proves that.

 

I was unaware that AT&T was in the tank for Bush and the Republicans. Does that mean the following companies are also?

In additon Prudential is taking a $100 million hit.

In my neck of the woods, the major concern is the $2,000 fine per employee who works 120 days that a business doesn't provide health insurance for. This will cause all sort of problems with seasonal businesses. It really makes me wonder if my Democrat Senator and Representative actually read the bill and realized what this will do to the tourism industry. I'm guessing people in NH, VT, and CO (skiing states) are probably wondering the same thing.

Spoiler

TOURIST TRAP? The state’s seasonal tourism industry is only now beginning to realize that it could get hammered by the new health care reform law.

The bill signed into law on Tuesday by President Barack Obama fines businesses that do not provide health insurance to full-time employees who work more than 120 days a year. The assessment is $2,000 per employee, which, according to SkiNH lobbyist Bruce Berke and group president Alice Pearce, could mean as much as $1 million in fines to the big ski resorts, some of which hire as many as 500 seasonal workers.

Also affected would be any business that hires on a seasonal basis, and, like most nationally, do not offer health insurance.

Pearce said the original Senate health care bill contained only a $750-per-employee fine, which kicked in after a worker was employed 150 days. That exempted most ski areas, she said.

But the House tightened it to $2,000 and 120 days.

SkiNH is asking Sens. Judd Gregg and Jeanne Shaheen to support returning to the original Senate parameters because, Pearce and Berke say, it would have minimal impact on their industry.

Otherwise, Pearce said, it will be up to each ski resort (and presumably, seasonal attractions statewide) to figure out how to handle it. The choices are pretty clear, either increase prices or cut costs, which could mean hiring fewer workers next winter.

Pearce said lift ticket prices here are generally lower than those in Vermont and Maine, but, "New Hampshire ski areas can only push those prices so far."

The new provision has ski areas and the hotel and lodging industry nationally concerned.

In Colorado, a Steamboat Springs official said it could cost that resort as much as $2 million a year.

 

Quite possibly, but the article does not show how they came up with that figure.

I wonder how they count those days? If it's 120 days from the date of hire, then it's four months. However, a literal reading of that clause is actually at work 120 days a year. That would provide a considerably longer timeframe. If you work 5 days per week every week, that's 24 weeks before you hit the 120-day mark, which is almost 6 full months. Seasonal industries generally are not in operation six months per year, but are almost certainly open 4 months per year.

 

And now the AP is reporting that young adults can expect their premiums to go up 17%

Spoiler

By CARLA K. JOHNSON (AP) – 21 hours ago

CHICAGO — Under the health care overhaul, young adults who buy their own insurance will carry a heavier burden of the medical costs of older Americans — a shift expected to raise insurance premiums for young people when the plan takes full effect.

Beginning in 2014, most Americans will be required to buy insurance or pay a tax penalty. That's when premiums for young adults seeking coverage on the individual market would likely climb by 17 percent on average, or roughly $42 a month, according to an analysis of the plan conducted for The Associated Press. The analysis did not factor in tax credits to help offset the increase.

The higher costs will pinch many people in their 20s and early 30s who are struggling to start or advance their careers with the highest unemployment rate in 26 years.

Consider 24-year-old Nils Higdon. The self-employed percussionist and part-time teacher in Chicago pays $140 each month for health insurance. But he's healthy and so far hasn't needed it.

The law relies on Higdon and other young adults to shoulder more of the financial load in new health insurance risk pools. So under the new system, Higdon could expect to pay $300 to $500 a year more. Depending on his income, he might also qualify for tax credits.

At issue is the insurance industry's practice of charging more for older customers, who are the costliest to insure. The new law restricts how much insurers can raise premium costs based on age alone.

Insurers typically charge six or seven times as much to older customers as to younger ones in states with no restrictions. The new law limits the ratio to 3-to-1, meaning a 50-year-old could be charged only three times as much as a 20-year-old.

The rest will be shouldered by young people in the form of higher premiums.

Higdon wonders how his peers, already scrambling to start careers during a recession, will react to paying more so older people can get cheaper coverage.

"I suppose it all depends on how much more people in my situation, who are already struggling for coverage, are expected to pay," Higdon says. He'd prefer a single-payer health care system and calls age-based premiums part of the "broken morality" of for-profit health care.

To be sure, there are benefits that balance some of the downsides for young people:

_ In roughly six months, many young adults up to age 26 should be eligible for coverage under their parents' insurance — if their parents have insurance that provides dependent coverage.

_ Tax credits will be available for individuals making up to four times the federal poverty level, $43,320 for a single person. The credits will vary based on income and premiums costs.

_ Low-income singles without children will be covered for the first time by Medicaid, which some estimate will insure 9 million more young adults.

But on average, people younger than 35 who are buying their own insurance on the individual market would pay $42 a month more, according to an analysis by Rand Health, a research division of the nonpartisan Rand Corp.

The analysis, conducted for The Associated Press, examined the effect of the law's limits on age-based pricing, not other ways the legislation might affect premiums, said Elizabeth McGlynn of Rand Health.

Jim O'Connor, an actuary with the independent consulting firm Milliman Inc., came up with similar estimates of 10 to 30 percent increases for young males, averaging about 15 percent.

"Young males will be hit the hardest," O'Connor says, because they have lower health care costs than young females and older people who go to doctors more often and use more medical services.

Predicting exactly how much any individual's insurance premium would rise or fall is impossible, experts say, because so much is changing at once. But it is possible to isolate the effect of the law's limits on age-based pricing.

Some groups predict even higher increases in premiums for younger individuals — as much as 50 percent, says Landon Gibbs of ShoutAmerica, a Tennessee-based nonprofit aimed at mobilizing young people on health care issues, particularly rising costs.

Gibbs, 27, a former White House aide under President George W. Bush, founded the bipartisan group with former hospital chain executive Clayton McWhorter, now chairman of a private equity firm. McWhorter finances the organization. The group did not oppose health care reform, but stressed issues like how health care inflation threatens the future of Medicare.

"We don't want to make this a generational war, but we want to make sure young adults are informed," Gibbs says.

Young people who supported Barack Obama in 2008 may come to resent how health care reform will affect them, Gibbs and others say. Recent polls show support among young voters eroding since they helped elect Obama president.

Jim Schreiber, 24, was once an Obama supporter but now isn't so sure. The Chicagoan works in a law firm and has his own tea importing business.

He pays $120 a month for health insurance, "probably pure profit for my insurance company," he says. Without a powerhouse lobbying group, like AARP for older adults, young adults' voices have been muted, he says. He's been discouraged by the health care debate.

"It has made me disillusioned with the Democrats," he said.

Ari Matusiak, 33, a Georgetown University law student, founded Young Invincibles with other Obama campaign volunteers to rally youth support for health care overhaul.

Age rating fails as a wedge issue because the pluses of the new law outweigh the minuses for young adults, Matusiak says.

"And we're not going to be 26, 27, 33 forever," Matusiak says. "Guess what? We're going to be in a different demographic soon enough."

Nationally representative surveys for the Kaiser Family Foundation have consistently found that young adults are more likely than senior citizens to say they would be willing to pay more so that more Americans could be insured. But whether that generosity will endure isn't clear.

"The government approach of — we'll just make someone get health care and pay for someone else — definitely NOT what I want," says Melissa Kaupke, 28, who is uninsured and works from her Nashville home.

In Chicago, Higdon says he supports the principles of the health care overhaul, even if it means he will pay more as a young man to smooth out premium costs for everyone.

"Hopefully I'll be old someday, barring some catastrophic event. And the likelihood of me being old is less if I don't have a good health plan."

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

 

I decided to research this a little more, just to get some facts and specifics. Do you know what this is really about, Snook? Or did you just read this and decide to post it here? I do have some specifics, but I'm going to wait until you can explain this a little better than this bit of BS. I'll wait; I've got time.

An insurance company? Thanks for that bit of good news, Snook. You just made my day. If this one is acutally true, it will make my day even better.

---------- Added 0 hours, 30 minutes and 58 seconds later... ----------

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreedomWorks

 

My understanding is that government was giving tax breaks so the companies would fund prescription plans as an attempt to keep Medicare solvent. Now the government shouldn't be surprised if the companies drop the benefit.

As for taking glee at the suffering of insurance companies, you have to remember that they have lots of employees and investors that are just like you and me. At one time you may have had a bad experience with one, but you shouldn't let it taint an entire industry. Heck, if I could do that I would hate the entire country of Mexico for what that burrito did to me when I ate at Boloco. Wait a minute, I do hate Mexico, damn I hate when things like that happen to me

 

Seems to me that some did not share the same concern for auto workers.

You almost have that right. It was not a "tax break" (think corporate welfare). Let me just say that it will subtract from the Federal deficit. It seems that some people were complaining about government spending, or so I've heard.

The government gives these companies Medicare subsidies, which they use for their retired workers. Now they have to count all the government payouts as income and pay taxes on those payouts. Just imagine the size of those Medicare payouts if that's just the taxes on them?

 

It's nice to hear that it's worked elsewhere, but do you think it's worth the security risks? Especially if you're going to open this up to every doctor in the nation (and thus also anyone who can sufficiently face the credentials of a doctor or get a password or whatever from one).

No, but looking through that I can see how you got that idea. The 'system' being 'massively abused' that I was talking about was the system you were proposing, one without a mandate.

I was responding to

which was your response to my:

'Changed' or 'reformed' don't describe what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a complete cessation of activity. Death, destruction, or possibly surgical removal, are apt descriptors. 'Change' or 'reform' are massive understatements.

Except that, so far, the only changes you've proposed are a removal of the mandate and an expansion of Medicare to all Americans. I'm telling you right now that that would kill Medicare along with the entire private health insurance industry, and deliver a heavy blow to the medical industry itself. It would take more than that to morph this system into what you want.

Please, please keep things in context, Chandos. You get confused when you don't.

I think it was something like the provision for it was in one and the funding was in the other, but I'm not sure.

I assume you're talking about people objecting to the bailout of the auto industry. The glaring difference there is that the auto industry got itself into it's little pile of poo. What you're proposing would be a direct and intentional government attack on the insurance industry. Imagine, for a second, that the government suddenly decided to tax your profession, and your profession alone, 50% of your income, then mandated a maximum pay for your profession at about 50% of what you currently earn, then mandated that you buy a small mansion or the government will tax you for not having one. It's not really the same thing as if you blew all your cash on a ferrarri and can't make the payments, is it?

 

Armageddon? The sky is falling? So much for context

Please, please, I'm not confused in the least. You just don't like the facts. They are stubborn things.

Perhaps you should take your own advice regrading context, since it confuses you. The question was about the investors and the employees not how the company got into trouble. Hence, the reason I commented on auto workers and not the auto companies.

An attack? You mean like Aramgeddon?

No, but I could have bought investments backed by sub-prime mortgages that were sold by insurance companies [like AIG] that were rated AAA, and turned out to be completely worthless.

 

Let me try this in small words, to make sure you follow. If the mandate (so much for small words ) is removed, but the protection for pre-existing conditions remains, people will only buy insurance (including Medicare) when they get sick. This means the insurance companies (and Medicare) will pay out on every policy they have. This means that the insurance companies will need to charge more for their premiums than they're paying the doctors for the coverage. Meanwhile, Medicare will be hemoraging funds at an unsustainable rate, especially if you also expand Medicare to everyone. Eventually, people will stop buying private insurance because it's not worth it. You've just killed the private insurance industry. You haven't 'reformed' them or 'changed' them, you've killed them. Now, for Medicare, there are a few possibilities. Medicare may recieve massive funding, become a single-payer system, and pay doctors a fraction of what they need to stay in business. The doctors will then go out of business. Congratulations, you've just killed not just health insurance in the US, but also health care in the US. Alternatively, Medicare may not recieve the funding it would need, Americans may ditch health insurance altogether, and suddenly it's everyone for themselves, exactly what the Dems are opposing. The last possibility is that Medicare get's it's funding and raises payouts, which may be a sustainable system, but now you're talking about more changes than what you've proposed.

Now, what parts of that do you disagree with?

Chandos, you responded to part of my post by talking about Medicare. The only problem was, my post wasn't talking about Medicare. You took part of it out of context and then responded to it as if it were targeted at Medicare. Those are the facts, and I rather like them to be honest. Either you got confused, or you were blatantly abusing the quote feature.

Oh, I didn't loose context, I just extrapolated things a little. Sorry if I lost you. Yes, I know you were talking about investors and employees, but I then considered what the morality concerning such may be? Surely, everyone who invests isn't entitled to make a profit. Investments are risky. Likewise, everyone who gets a job isn't entitled to keep that job. If the people who run the business you've invested in or hired onto manage things poorly, you suffer. That's sad, but it's a fact of life. Likewise, if someone's brakes fail and they run a light and plows into your car, you suffer. Sad, but a fact, and there isn't much we can do about it. On the other hand, if the same result comes from an intentional act from outside forces, things are different. If the brakes failing aren't a simple mechanical failure, but sabotage, there are criminal proceedings. If the business doesn't fail due to mismanagement, but due to the government deciding to regulate it into non-existance, things should be different.

You do realize that no one here except you has used that word, don't you? You're the only one going to the extremes here, and it doesn't serve your position well.

And that would be something else still. Markedly different from either the first or the second examples. Thanks for agreeing with me.

 

Like I asked, (and I'll make the sentence REAL simple, since you have not started those night classes in reading comprehension yet), how come that has not happened in Canada, or the rest of the world?

Maybe you are just confused.

Now you are adding your own version of what you think is "moral" to a hypotheitical situation, which does not really exist. I don't consider you much of a moral person, nor an authority on what's moral, so your opinion on which scenario you think is moral or not, isn't a concern for me. BTW, the auto industry IS very regulated. Not only that but, just to show how jacked-up your thinking is what's regulated or not regulated in either industry, give the auto industry an anti-trust exemption like the insurance companies have, remove all the government restrictions that they work under, and you would see much different results.

Have you read your own posts? You have ignored my position to argue over your usual tripe and triva when you find yourself unable to answer a direct point on the issue at hand.

Extreme? Again, reading comprehension, my friend.

Here, let me try again:

That the rest of the world is on a system, or something similar, does make what I am proposing "extreme." It proves the opposite. And that we are the only ones who have this system, that is both finanically and morally bankrupt, makes our system, the one you are defending, the one that is extreme. This is where you have failed. You have never been able to explain why those systems (like I am proposing) work in the rest of the world but they cannot work here. While our system is on the brink of failure regardless of the Patient Protection Act that just passed.

You position is extreme. You conjure hypotheticals to try and prove something that does not exist. That fact is that the mandate has a very slim chance of being removed. The current law may be tweeked a bit in the years to come, but more than likely it will be here to stay.

Really? Again, reading comprehension.

 

This is one point in which I agree with NOG. Nations with universal health care systems charge significantly more in taxes than what the average American contributes to Medicare. Currently, if you look at the "FICA" line in your paycheck you'll see that 7.65% of your earned income goes there. (Unless you earn in excess of about $110,000 - the current cap on the Social Security Wage base, or are self-employed, in which case you may have to pay twice as much.)

That 7.65% is broken down as 6.2% towards Social Security, and 1.45% towards Medicare/Medicaid. The Social Security part is capped at around $110,000 while the Medicare/Medicaid has no cap - it's 1.45% no matter how much you earn.

For the purposes of this discussion, we're only interested in the 1.45% paid towards Medicare and Medicaid. If you want to put everyone on a Medicaid type system, that portion of the tax would have to be increased and remain compulsory. How much would we have to increase that portion of the tax?

It's hard to say how it would be implemented, but we can use the systems imposed in Europe for guidelines, and most European nations pay between 6% and 8% of their annual income towards their health care system. So we're talking about raising the tax somewhere in the neighborhood of 4-6 times what it currently is. That certainly sounds like a lot, but it's not as bad when you consider that you won't be paying a separate bill for health insurance - which for most people is provided to you through your employer.

So, let's take a hypothetical example. Say we're talking about a family of four making $60,000 per year (which is right around the median last year.) And say that guy has a family medical plan from his employer that costs him $350 per month. So he's paying $4200 to have health care insurance, on top of the Medicare contribution, which in his case is about $800. So his total payments are $5000.

If we were to switch to an 8% tax to fund a Medicare for all type system, his contribution from his paycheck would be $4800. But he wouldn't be paying the $4200 towards health care insurance, so he is actually coming out ahead here.

Of course, for people with high incomes, it's not nearly as good of a deal. Say we have a guy making twice that - $120,000 who works for that same company. He also pays $4200 for the health care insurance, and in his case about $1600 towards Medicare, for a totoal of $5800. But in his case 8% of his income is $9,600 - so he's not coming out ahead.

 

Do Canada or the rest of the world mandate that insurance companies must accept clients, regardless of what pre-existing conditions they have? Even supplimental insurance wouldn't work with that. Any system where you can drop the coverage as soon as you don't need it any more, and then pick it back up when you do, would fail.

I can understand how you could disagree with my morality here. I don't have any particular problem with the government banning an industry. I do have a problem with the government forcing an industry (intentionally or not) to operate their business in such a way as to guarantee their failure, though. It stinks of side-stepping the people. That's really what I dislike about it. If you want UHC, I understand and that's fine with me, but advocate for the creation of UHC, not for some shady back-door politics that will cripple anything else.

Yes, but again, the auto industry wasn't damaged by regulation, but by economics and mismanagement when it got the bailout. Oh, and thanks for reminding me of the anti-trust exemption. That's something else I'd like to see in reform: the removal of anti-trust exemption.

What positions of yours have I ignored? Name one, please?

When you go on a rant falsly accusing (or implying as you did) your competition of calling for armageddon, yes, I think you've gone extreme. Mind you, if I had said you were bringing about armageddon, that would be different. Then I would have been going on the extreme. I didn't, though. And you know I didn't.

I conjure hypotheticals to explore the changes you have proposed. Sure, there's a very slim chance that any of this will happen, but that didn't stop you from talking, so why should it stop me.

 

They have public health systems so it doesn't matter. The point is, that in some countries they have the choice; whether with the German system, which has a private system (and a public option), or Canada, where they have private insurance which is supplemental. In Germany only some are required to carry insurance.

I'm not advocating any back-door shady politics, only that people have a choice in health care. If you have a public option, you really would not need a mandate (because you would not need to force insurance companies to take pre-existing conditions; those could be covered by public insurance). Nevertheless, it would be helpful, because the government would have to bear the cost of those with pre-exising conditions. So much like SS, it would help if everyone bore the cost to support a system that covered everyone, but still provided the choice of private insurance. Without a public option you end up with what we have now - a more heavily regulated private insurance and a mandate, which I believe is really a tax on health care, but by a different name.

My concern is for the rank-and-file worker, whether it is for the insurance companies or the auto industry. The government can't save every job and every company out there, but it can use a sliding scale towards what it can realistically save - a sort of moral algebra as proposed by Ben Franklin. He commented:

It is the same for the considerations of the government if it is to avoid negative and unintended consequences. It must weigh every moral decision against the weight of what it can practically accomplish withn its just powers and means. Yet, it still must take care to apply itself in a univeral sense of what is "moral" if it is to be "Just" in the larger sense of the term.

http://www.professormcgill.com/blog...-nations-first-structured-analytic-technique/

Almost everything (from seatbelts, to tires, to gas milage, to air emmissions), is heavily regulated by the government. And the insurance companies regulate the auto industry as well. The cost of auto insurance can determine what rolls off the line in Detroit when all is said and done. Remember, you are mandated to buy auto insurance.

I posted it in my previous post.

Yes, you did. And I posted your comments that prove it. You are again ignoring my points.

But again, I was being sarcastic. We both know the insurance companies aren't going anywhere, at least not any time soon. But nevertheless, your point is well taken.

 

No, the point is that insurance can't survive without a mandate and with a protection of pre-existing conditions. I never said, nor implied, that private and public can't co-exist. What I said was that the changed you're proposing effectively disallow the continuation of private insurance, even as supplemental.

Now this makes sense: removing the mandate and the protection of pre-existing conditions. I can see that working with an expansion of Medicare, basically just giving the people a public option. I don't personally think it's the best solution, but it could work. Without the removal of the protection of pre-existing conditions, though, this would be a back-door ban on insurance, intentional or not. If you had intended the removal of the protection of pre-existing conditions from the beginning, then that changes things.

Yes, I know all of that, but I don't see the purpose of bringing it up. It doesn't change anything. The car companies that needed bailout needed it because of their own mistakes. This is proven by the fact that other major car companies, under just as many regulations, didn't need a bailout.

I'm sorry, I missed it. And looking again, I still can't find it. Could you be more specific? If it's you're 'options' argument, I didn't ignore it but rather pointed out that what you had proposed (before you mentioned a removal of the protection of pre-existing conditions) wouldn't actually produce more options, but less. In other words, my response was pointing out that intent and consequences wouldn't quite line up.

No, I didn't and your quote proved I didn't. I never mentioned Armageddon until you implied I had. I said you'd 'kill' or 'destroy' the system, which is a proper description for the complete cessation of activity. If all companies go bankrupt, you have 'killed' the industry. That's not an extreme accusation. You're BS about Armageddon, however, was.

What, exactly, were you being 'sarcastic' about? The removal of the mandate? The expansion of Medicare? Your desire for UHC or a government takeover of health care? Mind you, sarcasm is an expression of contempt, meaning that you wouldn't actually support such a thing. And, again, I say that if the mandate is killed, and the protection of pre-existing conditions isn't, and nothing else is done to adapt, the insurance companies will be going somewhere, and soon. Now, like you, I don't think that's terribly likely, but it is possible and in the hands of the courts, not the insurance industry.

 

As a follow up to those companies who were reporting to the SEC the amount they expect the healthcare bill to impact them The New York Times reports that the House Democrats who initially didn't believe them, now accept that the companies did the correct thing and aren't acting as shills for George Bush and the Republicans (OK, the last part of that sentence was my interpretation )

Spoiler

WASHINGTON — When major companies declared that a provision of the new health care law would hurt earnings, Democrats were skeptical. But after investigating, House Democrats have concluded that the companies were right to tell investors and the government about the expected adverse effects of the law on their financial results.

At issue is a section of the law that eliminates a tax break available to companies that provide drug benefits to retirees as part of their insurance coverage. The tax change, expected to generate $4.5 billion of revenue over the next 10 years, will help offset the cost of providing coverage to the uninsured.

Within days after President Obama signed the law on March 23, companies filed reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission, saying the tax change would have a material adverse effect on their earnings.

The White House suggested that companies were exaggerating the effects of the tax change. The commerce secretary, Gary F. Locke, said the companies were being “premature and irresponsible” in taking such write-downs.

Representative Henry A. Waxman of California and Bart Stupak of Michigan, both Democrats, opened an investigation and demanded that four companies — AT&T, Caterpillar, Deere and Verizon — supply documents analyzing the “impact of health care reform,” together with an explanation of their accounting methods.

The documents — hundreds of pages of e-mail messages and financial worksheets — include large amounts of data that substantiate the companies’ concerns. They have reignited a battle over the law in Congress.

Representative Joe L. Barton of Texas, the senior Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said, “From a financial standpoint, from a purely economic standpoint, many companies would be better off discontinuing health care as a fringe benefit, paying the penalty and pocketing the savings.”

In a memorandum summarizing its investigation, the Democratic staff of the committee said, “The companies acted properly and in accordance with accounting standards in submitting filings to the S.E.C. in March and April.”

Moreover, it said, “these one-time charges were required by applicable accounting rules.” The committee staff said this view was confirmed by independent experts at the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the American Academy of Actuaries.

Mr. Waxman, the chairman of the committee, and Mr. Stupak canceled a hearing at which they had planned to question executives on the effects of the law.

A tabulation by the United States Chamber of Commerce shows that at least 40 companies have taken charges against earnings that total $3.4 billion since the law was signed.

“Companies like AT&T, Verizon and a range of stakeholder associations are hopeful that the benefits of the new law will outweigh the costs,” Mr. Waxman and Mr. Stupak said in a memorandum to committee members. “But they cannot quantify the benefits until the law is implemented.”

AT&T, which took a $995 million charge to reflect the impact of the health care overhaul, said it would be “evaluating prospective changes to the active and retiree health care benefits offered by the company.”

Under another provision, employers may be subject to financial penalties if they do not offer health insurance to employees. Documents provided to Congress by AT&T indicate that its medical costs in 2009 were $4.7 billion, divided about equally between active employees and retirees — far more than it would pay in penalties if it did not provide coverage.

Verizon said it was taking a $970 million charge against earnings because of the change in tax treatment of a subsidy it receives for retiree drug coverage. In addition, Verizon said it could be affected by a new tax on high-cost health plans that takes effect in 2018.

“Many of the plans that Verizon offers to employees and retirees are projected to have costs above the thresholds in the legislation and will be subject to the 40 percent excise tax,” the company told employees.

In a general analysis of the new law, Verizon said, “To avoid additional costs and regulations, employers may consider exiting the employer health market and send employees” to state-run insurance exchanges, where people can buy insurance.

A Caterpillar executive made a similar point in an e-mail message to colleagues, saying the tax changes could “drive many employers to just drop coverage for retirees altogether, and let the government foot the whole bill.”

Caterpillar, the maker of construction equipment, said Monday that it was taking a $90 million charge to earnings because of taxes resulting from the new health care law.

In addition, according to documents provided to Congress, Caterpillar could incur new costs because the law eliminates lifetime limits on coverage, and certain children would be allowed to stay on their parents’ insurance until their 26th birthday.