Elections have consequences...

... especially when we elect dimwits like Henry Waxman, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama to positions of prominence.

I'm sure those of you who read this blog are sick and tired of me hammering on ObamaCare but, get used to it, it's not going to stop. In fact, it's only going to get worse as the unintended consequences of this bill continue to come to light.

Just this past week and a half, major corporations made public statements about adjustments to their balance sheets brought on by the revision of the tax code made by ObamaCare. AT&T ($1 billion), Caterpillar ($100 million), Deere & Co. ($150 million), AK Steel ($31 million), 3M ($90 million), and Valero (up to $20 million) will all have to take writedowns due solely to ObamaCare.

What happened? Well, very simply, when the government, under then President George W. Bush, enacted yet another government boondoggle Medicare Part D, they determined that it would be cheaper to provide a subsidy to employers to keep retiree's on corporate health care plans. In fact, it was determined that not only was it cheaper for the government (through an employee plan, average benefit costs were around $600 while, under a government Medicare plan, costs were around $1200), the retiree's would receive a more generous benefit package than they would under Medicare. The main purpose here, obviously, was to stop corporations from dumping their retiree's into Medicare, thereby putting an even larger strain on an already sinking government entitlement.

With ObamaCare, in order to play budget games to get a good score with the CBO, the subsidy has now been determined to be taxable income. This allowed the Waxman's, Pelosi's, Reid's, and Obama's of the word to create 'reduction' of costs, as the subsidy would no longer be provided. Since the CBO, based on it's mission statement as a non-partisan organization, cannot score based upon believed reaction to a bill but only on what the bill says, this came out as a net plus for the Democrats.

As ObamaCare is now law, the unintended consequences (imagine that... unintended consequences in a 2500+ page bill that our Congress couldn't be bothered to actually read... I'm shocked, I tell you.. shocked) are coming to light, especially with the announcements by the corporations mentioned above. It's only a matter of time before the corporations determine it's better to cut benefits for their retiree's and dump them into Medicare.*

Of course, Henry Waxman would have none of this. How dare these corporations come out and speak 'truth to power' about the real consequences of this abomination. Nope, Mr. Waxman will not allow that. In fact, he has summoned the CEO's of these companies to come before Congress and answer for their transgressions (see: kabuki theater were Henry Waxman stokes the populist fire and tries to make the corporations out to be the bad guy). Waxman's claim is that these are outright lies being perpetrated by Republican CEO's who just want to make ObamaCare look bad.

Never mind the fact that, after the Enron scandal, and the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley, that AT&T and the other corporations are simply following Generally Accepted Accounting Principals as enacted by, who else, Congress and Henry Waxman. The law states that, "Issuers are required to disclose to the public, on an urgent basis, information on material changes in their financial condition or operations. These disclosures are to be presented in terms that are easy to understand supported by trend and qualitative information of graphic presentations as appropriate."

These are the type of people we have running the country.


* Dumping retiree's into Medicare, thereby doubling the financial burden this subsidy represented, is not the only unintended consequence of this policy. With corporations like AT&T, Deere & Co., etc..., taking writedowns of $100 million or more, do you really think they're going to be hiring any new employees? In fact, it's highly likely that this will have a major negative effect on employment.

I guess it's good that we have ObamaCare to provide health benefits to those who lose their jobs because of... ObamaCare.

Repeal the bill!