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Delta vs. ObamaCare: Friendly skies, unfriendly rules (Will cost company $100 Million a year)
Reason Magazine ^ | The December 2013 Issue | Peter Suderman, senior editor

Posted on 11/30/2013 5:10:52 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

Delta Airlines says that ObamaCare will cost the company $38 million directly over the next year, and nearly $100 million when all additional costs are factored in.

A June letter signed by Robert Knight, Delta's senior vice president for government affairs, said that the company will absorb some of those costs but will also end up sharing some of them with employees. Ultimately, Knight wrote, ObamaCare "will result in increasing costs, for both companies and our employees, and will also reduce the benefits provided."

The bulk of the letter, which was obtained and published by Erick Erickson at RedState.com, details the specific provisions that Delta expects to add to the company's costs. Those include: a "reinsurance fee" of $63 per covered individual, which makes family coverage more expensive, and which the company estimates will cost about $10 million next year; coverage for children and dependents up to age 26, which results in a "permanent increase in costs of about $14 million a year"; and the individual mandate, which Delta expects will result in some employees who currently turn down employer coverage deciding to take it rather than pay a penalty, which the airline expects to cost an additional $14 million annually.

The letter also warns that the law's "Cadillac tax" on expensive health plans, which is set to take effect in 2017, essentially represents a ceiling on plan benefits, and that it will cause employers and insurers to pare back the benefits they offer.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: airlines; economy; obamacare; travel

1 posted on 11/30/2013 5:10:53 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Delta Airlines says that ObamaCare will cost the company $38 million directly over the next year, and nearly $100 million when all additional costs are factored in.

...and this would be prior to anyone needing, seeing, being referred to, being admitted to a hospital, clinic, or anywhere else there might be medical professionals practicing, and this is just one company of tens of thousands. So, what is left to say other than get rid of this travesty before anything else goes wrong.

This looks like a big enough travesty that everyone associated with its appearance and passage should rightly fear for their very lives.


2 posted on 11/30/2013 5:33:42 AM PST by wita
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
This is a huge issue that empty skulls are celebrating because it hits "those corporations"...well, those corporations are US, mush-brains! We take the hit!

We have to answer to our stockholders who are US citizens, investors who risked their capital, their retirement funds and life savings into our sense of responsibility and accountability!

Now where do we make the cut while still meeting our financial obligations?!? If we cut value to the shareholder, what happens to the assessed value of our business - how does that make us an attractive investment? If we cut services to our employees, how does that fairly compensate them for their efforts during the obama depression? If we cut services in general, how does that help our customers? WTF are you trying to do to us?!? Our money? NO, YOUR MONEY and obama just made millions of dollars of it just DISAPPEAR FOR NOTHING!!!

Uhm, rant off...

3 posted on 11/30/2013 5:39:49 AM PST by Caipirabob (Communists... Socialists... Democrats...Traitors... Who can tell the difference?)
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To: wita
everyone associated with its appearance and passage should rightly fear for their very lives.

Yes. What they did was a criminal act.

4 posted on 11/30/2013 6:19:07 AM PST by Salvey
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

I’d never thought about that (duhhhh....). It isn’t just the direct costs of Obamacare and the destruction of medical care as we used to know it. There are also going to be indirect costs as employers have to raise the price of things because of those costs.


5 posted on 11/30/2013 6:22:06 AM PST by grania
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

“A June letter signed by Robert Knight, Delta’s senior vice president for government affairs, said that the company will absorb some of those costs...”

That is, higher airfares that the AIR TRAVELER willl absorb because all airlines will go up.

Recession coming.

(And have you ever wondered why a company from “the greatest country in the world” needs a VP of “government affairs”?)


6 posted on 11/30/2013 6:22:52 AM PST by ReaganGeneration2
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To: grania

And when eeeevil corporations raise the prices of their products, people will stop buying the products because we can’t afford them. Then theses eeeevil corporations will go out of business, costing us millions of jobs. With many more people unemployed Big Gov will need to “help” us even more with additional welfare programs. It’s almost like obamacare was designed to turn our country into a socialist paradise!


7 posted on 11/30/2013 6:52:03 AM PST by goodwithagun (My gun has killed fewer people than Ted Kennedy's car.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
A June letter signed by Robert Knight, Delta's senior vice president for government affairs, said that the company will absorb some of those costs but will also end up sharing some of them with employees.

I'm going out on a small limb and predicting that Robert Knight will shortly be receiving an audit letter from the IRS for the high crime of criticizing the Regime. I know. It's not much of a prediction. More of a sort of inevitable other-shoe-drop.

8 posted on 11/30/2013 7:12:38 AM PST by Flick Lives (The U.S. is dead to me.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Delta's senior vice president for government affairs . . . the company will absorb some of those costs but will also end up sharing some of them with employees."

Given the low airline profit margins, this cannot be true, unless Delta is planning to go bankrupt and out of business. The company will pass 100% of those costs on to employees in the form of reduced benefits in other areas or to customers in the form of higher ticket prices and other fees. There are no winners other than the insiders who helped write ObamaCare as the biggest crony capitalism trophy law in history.

9 posted on 11/30/2013 7:19:54 AM PST by Pollster1 ("Shall not be infringed" is unambiguous.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

An alternative is for Delta and other companies to stop providing group insurance. They can give their employees a raise to offset what they had been paying toward coverage and dump them all to the ACA website.

Delta stock will soar, as future costs decrease.

This will add to the people directly affected by the ACA and the cry for single payer as a “solution” will get louder.


10 posted on 11/30/2013 7:22:56 AM PST by jdsteel (Give me freedom, not more government.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Oh....and the coverage is WORSE!!!

not “better”.


11 posted on 11/30/2013 7:49:32 AM PST by G Larry (Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Psalms 109:8)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

And the little islamist says, “allah effu”.


12 posted on 11/30/2013 8:17:07 AM PST by onedoug
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Delta is also getting assaulted by the EPA because of new refinery regulations. Delta bought a refinery in order to manufacture jet fuel, but a new cover all reg will put huge expenses on them.

The hits just keep coming.


13 posted on 12/02/2013 7:13:37 AM PST by Texas resident
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