Posted on 05/06/2010 10:26:09 AM PDT by markomalley
The great mystery surrounding the historic health care bill is how the corporations that provide coverage for most Americans -- coverage they know and prize -- will react to the new law's radically different regime of subsidies, penalties, and taxes. Now, we're getting a remarkable inside look at the options AT&T, Deere, and other big companies are weighing to deal with the new legislation.
Internal documents recently reviewed by Fortune, originally requested by Congress, show what the bill's critics predicted, and what its champions dreaded: many large companies are examining a course that was heretofore unthinkable, dumping the health care coverage they provide to their workers in exchange for paying penalty fees to the government.
That would dismantle the employer-based system that has reigned since World War II. It would also seem to contradict President Obama's statements that Americans who like their current plans could keep them. And as we'll see, it would hugely magnify the projected costs for the bill, which controls deficits only by assuming that America's employers would remain the backbone of the nation's health care system.
Hence, health-care reform risks becoming a victim of unintended consequences. Amazingly, the corporate documents that prove this point became public because of a different set of unintended consequences: they told a story far different than the one the politicians who demanded them expected.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
duh
This is not unintended consequences. The administration KNEW this was a possibility.
Employers dropping coverage was an INTENDED consequence by the Obama Administration.
2014 news item.
We should start calling for individuals to get the same tax break that employers get, so we can own our health insurance policies just as we own our life insurance, fire insurance, and car insurance policies. Those policies don't lock us into a particular employer, and they don't become subject to "pre-existing conditions" when we change jobs.
Yes, but forced dependence on government largesse (through subsidies) does not liberate you from being a wage slave; it merely changes you from being a wage slave to a vassal of the state.
That's great and all, but in this instance, those dropped from work plans will likely end up on a government program. Unless that's the end result you were hoping for, I don't see that as a good thing.
Worth repeating:
“Yes, but forced dependence on government largesse (through subsidies) does not liberate you from being a wage slave; it merely changes you from being a wage slave to a vassal of the state.”
Our war of independence 1777 was fought to take the king’s foot off our necks. Now, we rush to kneel to get a “free” cookie. What happened to our Honor and Liberty?
A worker who currently has an income too high to qualify for the taxpayer-subsuduzed coverage is going to be in a world of hurt if their employer drops their coverage and they have to buy on the open market. This could cost 25-30% of their take home pay. If this happens to me, I will quit my job and reitre, forcing my income low enough to qualify for government hand-outs. Why work?
And even if they give you a raise to offset the cost to you to buy your own, the government gets their cut of your raise before you do. What a racket. This has got to be stopped.
Good job Rats! /sarc
ping
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