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1. You mean those AMERICAN companies that outsource that labor in India, China, and Mexico.
2. Those small companies have already been eliminated by the large multinational companies way before this healthcare bill was approved.
3. 60% of all bankruptcies are due to medical expenses. You are telling me that less bankruptcies won't lead to increased spending?
4. Sure, a company with 60 employees might cut 11 people to fit under 50 employees. A small business with 100 employees is not going to cut 51 employees or half it's work force as it will likely not be able to function. Yes, this is bad but what's worse...the hundreds of thousands of people without health insurance because the executives of these companies want to maximize profits and make millions more?
Regarding #3 above:
This HC bill will not stop the bankruptcies. If people do not have savings they do not have savings. If you live way beyond your means then even a broken A/C or a broken down car will cause you financial harm.
"Bankruptcies due to medical bills increased by nearly 50 percent in a six-year period, from 46 percent in 2001 to 62 percent in 2007, and most of those who filed for bankruptcy were middle-class, well-educated homeowners.
..
Overall, three-quarters of the people with a medically-related bankruptcy had health insurance, they say."
1. You mean those AMERICAN companies that outsource that labor in India, China, and Mexico.
2. Those small companies have already been eliminated by the large multinational companies way before this healthcare bill was approved.
3. 60% of all bankruptcies are due to medical expenses. You are telling me that less bankruptcies won't lead to increased spending?
4. Sure, a company with 60 employees might cut 11 people to fit under 50 employees. A small business with 100 employees is not going to cut 51 employees or half it's work force as it will likely not be able to function. Yes, this is bad but what's worse...the hundreds of thousands of people without health insurance because the executives of these companies want to maximize profits and make millions more?
NYC is planning a layoff of 19,000 employees, all of which are unionized already.
You many not realize it, but you are defending government subsidies in this case, not me. Apparently the companies got addicted to Bush's hand-outs. These hand-outs need to be removed.
"Hand out"? Read the WSJ today and get a little education. Do liberals read the WSJ?
Okay. Let's remove that "handout" and boot hundreds of thousands more out of their jobs. This was an effort to save jobs and money, you idiot-
a. the plan reduced the total cost from $1250 to $650 per enrollee, saving the feds money.
b. the plan allowed corporations to maintain retirees with thier benefits and maintain current workers due to reduced costs.
Whatever happened to job creation? Keep in mind that not all of us can go on welfare. Someone needs to be left working to support the rest of the nation. Are you going to hire these people who have lost thier jobs due to Obamacare? Who will?
Obama the job killer strikes again. I guess this could become a Las Vegas game, in which people can bet how many jobs Obama will kill each year and how high unemployment will go. Notice that there is no more talk of "saved jobs" anymore. These are now "lost jobs" due to misguided, job killing socialist programs.
Will the last person with a private sector job during the Obama adminiistration please turn out the light?
"Hand out"? Read the WSJ today and get a little education. Do liberals read the WSJ?
Do liberals read it? I don't know, but I read it occationally, altough I am more into "The Economist" magazine. I would never take WSJ for gospel like you obviously do.
Quote:
Okay. Let's remove that "handout" and boot hundreds of thousands more out of their jobs. This was an effort to save jobs and money, you idiot-
Let's boot them out? Is it really for you to decide? I didn't know you had such authority.
Well, since you had to resort to name calling, the conversation is over.
Maybe Bush should not have tried to run US corporations like that. It's funny how you people support and oppose the same things depending on who is in WH. I'll bet you voted for Bush even after he meddled with the HC in 2003.
Prescription coverage for seniors... are you for that, or against it? Let's assume for the moment that you're for it. Given that, what's wrong with working a deal in which corporations are given a tax incentive to share in the cost of providing the coverage? Or do you think it would be a better idea to have the government/Medicare pay the entire cost?
This is being misunderstood by many. Even before HCR passed, corporations were reconsidering continuing retiree prescription drug coverage. Kaiser did a survey in 2005:
FOUR IN FIVE LARGE FIRMS TO MAINTAIN RETIREE DRUG COVERAGE AND ACCEPT MEDICARE SUBSIDIES IN 2006, BUT ARE LESS CERTAIN ABOUT FUTURE STRATEGY
Firms accepting the retiree drug subsidy in 2006 are less certain about whether they will continue to take this approach in future years. Among those firms that will accept the subsidy in 2006, about four in five (82%) say that they are "very" or "somewhat" likely to accept the subsidy again in 2007. Looking ahead to 2010, only half (50%) say they are likely to maintain coverage and accept the subsidy, while 22% say they are unlikely to do so, and 28% say they do not know.
"Most employers are accepting government subsidies and taking a wait and see attitude on the drug law," Kaiser Family Foundation President and CEO Drew E. Altman said. "The widespread dropping of drug benefits that some had feared has been averted so far as businesses figure out what their longer-term response will be."
Bruce Barlett wrote an article in 2006 for the Cato Institute. This was really corporate welfare - tax free money in the billions for some companies. Do we really want that to continue?
An excerpt:
I puzzled for a long time about why Republicans would write a bill that provided benefits even for those who had no need for them. They were making it more expensive without improving health care in any way at all.
The answer became clear when the New York Times reported that the drug program would reimburse corporations for the drug benefits they were already providing to their retirees. The federal government would send huge checks to some of the largest corporations in the United States for the costs that they were already contractually obligated to pay. The final legislation provides a 28 percent tax-free subsidy that is expected to average $660 per retiree per year.
The numbers are huge. After passage of the legislation, the Wall Street Journal reported that General Motors anticipated receiving $4 billion to cover its prescription drug costs. Other recipients included Verizon ($1.3 billion), BellSouth ($572 million), Delphi ($500 million), U.S. Steel ($450 million), American Airlines ($415 million), John Deere ($400 million), United Airlines ($280 million), and Alcoa ($190 million).
[url=http://www.cato.org/research/articles/cpr28n1-050101.html]How Bush Bankrupted America[/url]
With all the anger and misinformation regarding health reform it might be worthwhile to take an historical look at how the Medicare Part D legislation was passed. We seem to have forgotten.
First, remember that the entire cost of the medicare legislation is unfunded.
Now, remember that the estimates were low-balled. In fact, the Washington Post reported in 2005 that the cost would be over $1 trillion - all of it unfunded. That same article had this:
Last March, Richard S. Foster, Medicare's chief actuary for nearly a decade, said administration officials threatened to fire him if he disclosed his belief in 2003 that the drug package would cost $500 billion to $600 billion. Lawmakers in both parties accused the administration of concealing important information that could have derailed passage of the bill.
[url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9328-2005Feb8.html]Medicare Drug Benefit May Cost $1.2 Trillion (washingtonpost.com)[/url]
There's also a lot of anger about the way the health reform was passed and the deals made for votes. Here's a reminder of what went on to get Part D passed. I think some will be surprised - especially about the Republicans literally stopping the clock so they could round up votes.
This is also from the Washington Post regarding the vote in the House:
A 15-minute vote was scheduled, and at the end of 15 minutes, the Democrats had won. The Republican leadership [URL="http://www.groundzerofortomdelay.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid= 1229"]froze the clock[/URL] for three hours while they desperately whipped defectors. This had never been done before. The closest was a 15-minute extension in 1987 that then-congressman Dick Cheney called “the most arrogant, heavy-handed abuse of power I’ve ever seen in the 10 years that I’ve been here.”
Tom DeLay bribed Rep. Nick Smith to vote for the legislation, using the political future of Smith's son for leverage. DeLay was later reprimanded by the House Ethics Committee.
The leadership told Rep. Jim DeMint that they would cut off funding for his Senate race in South Carolina if he didn't vote for the bill.
The chief actuary of Medicare, Rick Foster, had scored the legislation as costing more than $500 billion. The Bush administration suppressed his report, in a move the Government Accounting Office later judged "illegal.”
Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, a "no" vote, spent the night "hiding on the Democratic side of the floor, crouching down to avoid eye contact with the Republican search team."
Rep. Butch Otter, who provided one of the final votes after hours of arm-twisting from the Republican leadership, said, “I thought there was a chance I would get sick on the floor.”
[url=http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/lessons_from_the_medicare_pres.html]Ezra Klein - Lessons from the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit vote[/url]
Given this, it's quite odd that health reform has generated so much rage.
How much does the government save when instead of paying only tax-free partial subsidies, they have to pay the full cost for the 2 million (analysts' estimate: The Associated Press: Companies say health care costs hard to swallow) seniors that are expected to be dropped from corporations' insurance and shifted onto the Medicare rolls?
This is what Obama's and the Dems' HCR bill does: "As more employers drop drug coverage, Congress won't be dispensing as many subsidies with the one hand that it can tax with the other, so revenue will fall. The retirees who lose private benefits will simply move onto Medicare, so public drug spending will also rise. The American Benefits Council, which represents the largest employers, estimates the tax will be a net loser for the government if just one out of four retirees is crowded out of private coverage." How Obamacare Will Cost Many Seniors Their Private Drug Insurance - WSJ.com
This is what happens when only static tax analysis is used to draft legislation, as Obama and the Dems have done with the HCR bill, because it fails to account for changes in behavior in response to the change in tax liability. Sheer stupidity - that's why this has come back to very publicly bite Obama and the Dems in the ass.
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Don't cry for these companies
