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Fox: Many large companies dropping health care insurance for their retirees
Fox News Channel | 3/25/10

Posted on 03/25/2010 10:25:48 AM PDT by pabianice

Just announced on Fox. One of the first "benefits" of Obamacare is news that companies with large populations of retirees that now have health insurance through their former employees will, instead, be dumped and forced onto Medicaid and Medicare. The resulting fines for the companies will be far less than continuing to pay for retirees' medical care. It's all allegedly legal under ObamaCare.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: 111th; bho44; bhofascism; bhohealthcare; bhosocialism; democrats; economy; healthcare; hopeychangey; lping; obama; obamacare; pelosi; publicoption; seniors; singlepayer; socialism; socialisthealthcare
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To: Myrddin
Ok, I went back and listened to it. You're right; I only heard bits and pieces of the conversation between assignments at work. Thanks for setting me straight.

Still, I've heard and read in other places where health care agencies might still move out of the country to avoid the mess that Congress and Obama have created.

Brrr, I hate saying that name.

121 posted on 03/25/2010 12:26:13 PM PDT by ducttape45
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To: PhiKapMom

Federal employees must be the exception, because state employees are not. Their retirement insurance, as soon as they are of age for SS is for a small portion of what medicare does not cover, they must accept and use Part A, medicare. Period, and you cannot go to a doctor who doesn’t accept it and use the retirement bc/bs instead.


122 posted on 03/25/2010 12:33:52 PM PDT by gidget7 ("When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property." Thomas Jefferson)
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To: ducttape45
I was listening while working away at fixing about 34,000 lines of C++ during the show. Working in my home office has fewer distractions...except when my dogs erupt in a fit of barking. Overall, it is still a more focused environment than the average business office.

There has been mention of doctors setting up services outside the country. That's fine for exotic support that can be provided on a non-urgent basis. The loss of normal services is going to be bad for acute needs...appendicitis or car accidents.

123 posted on 03/25/2010 12:39:14 PM PDT by Myrddin
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To: Freddd
well just duh...whodathunk that companies would realize an opportunity to pass a large portion of their payroll onto fedzilla...

insurance as a payroll perk has gotten waaaay outta hand for a myriad of reasons, this is the natural result...

124 posted on 03/25/2010 1:19:18 PM PDT by Gilbo_3 (Gov is not reason; not eloquent; its force.Like fire,a dangerous servant & master. George Washington)
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To: TChris

neither one of these two bumblin cs's have a couldve come up w/ cloward-piven without help...

125 posted on 03/25/2010 1:28:24 PM PDT by Gilbo_3 (Gov is not reason; not eloquent; its force.Like fire,a dangerous servant & master. George Washington)
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To: ducttape45

Many countries demand that all jobs created go to their citizens. Some countries have requirements of a minimum of $1M investment in a business in order to emigrate. Residency and citizenship are two different things, as well.

I don’t know about Costa Rico, but many Caribbean countries will not sell land to non-citizens. Everything is long-term leases. You may be able to keep ownership of a home, but not the land under it.

Things may have changed. My information is 10-30 years old, depending on the country involved. Specifically British Virgin Islands and Bonaire, NA.

Be aware and informed before making any plans. We knew folks back in the 90s who received two very sizeable severance packages from IBM. With that and the sale of a home, they left for Bonaire, planning to open a deli. They could not work in the business themselves. Every job had to go to Bonaireans. An employee doesn’t have the passion for a business that owners have and the deli failed, eventually. The couple was also bored in paradise and I believe ended up going back to the States.

Back in the 70s-80s, we knew another couple who got out of the real estate market in Texas at the top. They were very well off. They built a lovely home on St. Johns. He was a jeweler and bought a tremendous quantity of gold. In fact, he had a vault incorporated into his new shop just for that. Over the years, their property taxes/fees rose, sometimes with no notice, just a bill in the mail. Gold rose and then slid. We last saw them at a trade show in Hawaii in the early 90s and they were crying the blues.

In the late 1980s, we had a chance to purchase a home on Bonaire. It was so appealing, the prices were low, especially for the amazing diving and weather and DH could work as both a jeweler and a dive master. We had some really intense marital discussions where I kept saying it could be too much of a risk. Well, by the late 1990s, others we knew who had bought on the island and who had jobs with American resort corporations, paid in US$, with US benefits of the period were desperately trying to sell those very same homes for 10x what they originally paid. No one wanted them at that price. The American corporations were being hit with *mattress taxes* and whatever else the government could think of. Tourism was down. Business for jewelry and even the better restaurants was down. Diving stayed great, but by then, 10 years later, a new crop of local young people, many coming home from having amassed a nest egg in Holland, were competing for the dive industry jobs. The government allowed managerial level employees to be American or Brit, but the dive master jobs went to the locals. There were loads of ocean going sailboats languishing in the harbor, up for sale. Most had to be taken back to Fort Lauderdale to find buyers. We lost touch and these folks may have recovered, but at the time, they were bitter, although all still young enough to think about leaving for somewhere else.

We all think we could be smarter than anyone who has tried something and failed or been at least badly impacted. But we cannot see the future and it rarely is a nice, safe, status quo.

Some of these companies that expatriate could easily find themselves hit with overnight increases in fees and taxes that suddenly make a Restored USA (Please, God!) with a lower tax rate and the possibility of ownership once again appealing, while their present domicile is becoming more and more expensive.


126 posted on 03/25/2010 1:28:25 PM PDT by reformedliberal ("If it takes a blood bath, let's get it over with." R. Reagan)
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To: Frantzie
Hopefully GM UAW retiree thugs and other union thugs will lose their Caddilac healthcare. Eff em.

I'll bet that liberal elites and their "friends" will get special treatments... on our dime. YOu're right, Frantzie - eff 'em.

127 posted on 03/25/2010 2:36:45 PM PDT by GOPJ (http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php?area=dam&lang=eng)
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To: nutmeg
This didn't take long, did it?

The "next surprise" will be that government's not as efficient as private care - in short - we'll get MUCH less care for must more money (taxes/debt). The dems will play the young against the old - and the "death panels" will quietly come into existence...

128 posted on 03/25/2010 2:53:56 PM PDT by GOPJ (http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php?area=dam&lang=eng)
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To: Myrddin
You can disaffirm contracts if you are in bankruptcy, which I believe is what happened to the dealers. I don't see the "Obama commies," as you put it, putting those companies into bankruptcy again just to screw union pensioners. Aren't the unions their friends?

My point was that it is relatively easy for a corporation to cut benefits to pensioners if there is no contract, but it gets more difficult in the case of union workers. The auto companies are not the only companies that are bound by union contracts to pay health benefits of retired workers. They are just the poster children because their benefits are so lavish.

129 posted on 03/25/2010 2:55:21 PM PDT by blau993 (Fight Gerbil Swarming)
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To: BigFinn

Wrong. The government is going after so called OffShore companies they will tax them dont worry about that. The only way companies can avoid taxes is to go out of business
how do you like that so that is what is going to happen.


130 posted on 03/25/2010 2:58:55 PM PDT by funfan
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To: Freddd

who would they talk to the MSM?


131 posted on 03/25/2010 2:59:48 PM PDT by funfan
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To: Frantzie

Well, I can’t blame the unions for blank slating everyone as a thug. Even an 82 year old woman.


132 posted on 03/25/2010 3:41:55 PM PDT by ReneeLynn (Socialism is SO yesterday. Fascism, it*s the new black. Mmm Mmm Mmm.)
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To: reformedliberal
Those are some very powerful insights my friend. And it may give pause to some companies, but I'm convinced that if they really want to stay in business, the healthcare companies will do what they must to survive. If that means moving out of the country, that's what they'll do.

If that happens, and more people in the country go unemployed, then hopefully it will wake up the American electorate and make them realize what they have enabled Washington to do. As much as I hate to say it, it may take another depression to wake people up.

133 posted on 03/25/2010 4:17:46 PM PDT by ducttape45
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To: gidget7

Part A is only for hospitals and federal employees get that for nothing as does everyone else. Part B that is over $90 a month is for the Part B — doctors, etc. That’s the one that most Federal retirees I know don’t take.


134 posted on 03/25/2010 5:03:05 PM PDT by PhiKapMom (Mary Fallin - OK Gov/Rick Perry - TX Gov/Coburn/Rubio - Senate 2010 !)
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To: Twotone
Isn’t this the norm? I retired early & have to pay for my insurance until I’m old enough for Medicare. My sweetie, who’s a bit older than me, was dropped from insurance when he became eligible for Medicare. It didn’t seem as if there was a choice!

A company providing any benefits to active or retired employees has always been a choice. Benefits are used to attract talent and to reward retirees for their years of service. Like anything else when the cost gets excessive the benefit goes away. Unlike Gov't, private companies cannot draw upon an endless supply of other people's hard earned money to pay their expenses. There is always a lower cost competitor in the wings, Gov't has no such competitor

135 posted on 03/25/2010 7:14:33 PM PDT by JrsyJack (a healthy dose of buckshot will probably get you the last word in any argument.)
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To: pabianice

Duh!


136 posted on 03/25/2010 7:51:58 PM PDT by elkfersupper (Member of the Original Defiant Class)
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To: pabianice

Duh!


137 posted on 03/25/2010 7:57:55 PM PDT by elkfersupper (Member of the Original Defiant Class)
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To: Question Liberal Authority

but the govt workers keep going on and on and on....


138 posted on 03/25/2010 8:33:37 PM PDT by cherry
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To: ducttape45

I’m ready to move somewhere too.....in my heart, and my mind, but what do you do when you’ve got kids and grandkids/


139 posted on 03/25/2010 8:36:09 PM PDT by cherry
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To: wac3rd

Didn’t he say in a speech today somewhere that we are getting closer to universal heathcare? Or is universal HC different than single-payer? If it isn’t, he’s just admitted that his goal is single-payer.


140 posted on 03/25/2010 9:24:24 PM PDT by 3catsanadog (If healthcare reform is passed, 41 years old will be the new 65 YO.)
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