(Hmm, this never got posted from Friday. Something went weird)
When Dems said the bill had to be passed in order to find out what was in it, I don’t think they had the following in And just think: most of the legislation hasn’t even started yet!
AT&T Inc. will book $1 billion in first-quarter costs, the most of any U.S. company, related to the health-care law signed this week by President Barack Obama.
A change in the tax treatment of Medicare subsidies triggered the non-cash expense, Dallas-based AT&T said today in a regulatory filing.
AT&T, the biggest U.S. phone company, joins Caterpillar Inc., AK Steel Holding Corp. and 3M Co. in recording non-cash expenses against earnings as a result of the law. Health-care costs may shave as much as $14 billion from U.S. corporate profits, according to an estimate by benefits consulting firm Towers Watson. AT&T employed about 281,000 people as of the end of January.
That will just be the start of companies having to spend money due to this ridiculous legislation. And what happens when profits go way down/expenses go way up? Layoffs come to mind. Reductions in infrastructure build-out. Slower changes in technology. Fewer people to service customers and the infrastructure. And let’s not forget that O-Care has incentives to keep average salaries low, not to mention
Businesses with 50 or more workers must offer coverage or pay $750 per worker. That penalty applies for every employee if even one signs up for government-subsidized insurance.
Like many companies, AT&T employees quite a few part time employees in its retail stores. I have two, with a third coming. Health insurance for part time employees in companies all over the country are much more expensive than for full timers, so very few PTers enroll in insurance. So, if just one gets government insurance, the entire company is on the hook. For AT&T, that would be $210,750,000 per year. So, why pay the fine and continue to offer insurance? Preemptively dump the insurance offerings and tell the employees to have fun in the exchange.This wouldn’t be intentional on the part of Democrats, would it?
wow Teach 14 billion is a really big number. Perhaps you would care to place it in the context of TOTAL CORPORATE PROFITS and then see what percentage that is
Why don’t YOU put it in context to the jobs that will be lost, little johnny? The bigger corporations may be able to handle it, but what about small businesses?
To private companies, John, companies that actually have to earn their money, rather than take it at the barrel of a jail cell like government does, $14 billion is quite a bit.
And you really need to understand the difference between profits and profit margin. BTW, your federal government has the highest profits of any entity, and they produce virtually nothing.