Democrats attacking businesses for following their own laws?

If these companies are going to whine about the cost of healthcare reform, they should be made to prove their point.

 

can a company report $1 gazillion and not asked any proof of how they arrived at the number?

 

This is what your article says:

[rquoter]“We request your personal testimony at this hearing,” read the Waxman and Stupak letter. The letter questioned the accounting by the corporations, saying they "appear to conflict with independent analyses" showing the law would lead to a decrease in premium costs for the companies.[/rquoter]

Also this:

[rquoter]
Rep. Waxman (D.-Calif.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is furious at the corporations for undercutting the new legislation and demanded that the company CEO’s come to Washington for a hearing April 21.

“The Democrats’ ‘surprise’ is hard to understand considering they were warned repeatedly about the massive new costs for U.S. employers. This bill creates a punishing new Medicare tax which the NFIB says small businesses will be ‘most likely’ to bear, killing jobs and pushing back our nation’s economic recovery,” said Rep. Peter J. Roskam (R.-Ill.).

Other Republicans called Waxman’s tactics an abuse of power.

“Do these liberal leaders really prefer corporations to violate their legal obligation and ultimately, freedom of speech in order to hide the truth about how Obamacare hurts job creators? This bullying is a clear abuse of power,” says Rep. Paul Broun (R.-Md.)[/rquoter]


The only whining I see cited in your article is from Republican congressman. Can you point to the part that shows "Its the democrats that are whining about this."?

 

The companies aren't whining.

Public companies are required to assess and report on the impact of these things. (It's not a 'Democrat' rule either).

Of course....everything's a talking point.

There's nothing here suggesting these companies were against HCR -- or spoke out against it. I'm also hesitant to accept that the 'thousands of layoffs' were necessarily HCR related or that the companies filings suggested that.

And the bleating by the congressmen about small business (AT&T? Caterpillar? really?) must have been the autobot response. Just as 'flawed' must be the new meme. Silly, really.

And I'm not sure that meeting with the stakeholders to go over their estimates of the costs of the legislation is such a draconian socialistic measure. Boehner wants congress to 'listen to these' guys and 'heed their warnings about the new (flawed) law', but apparently not by holding a hearing to examine the impact of the new law on large employers. ????

You'll note the conspicuous absence of quotes from the affected companies actually denouncing healthcare.

 

Details, details. You actually expect OddsOn to read and understand the articles he posts??

I'd also be curious to know if OddsOn actually opposes the particular change to the law being discussed here (or if he even understands it).

 

Calling a hearing to review the numbers and assess the impact is 'intimidation'?

Should they ignore them, then?

 

Intimidate them to do what??

The big numbers weren't a surprise - it was part of the way the Democrats had designed to pay for the health care plan. They removed an unfair and fairly ridiculous subsidy that benefitted big businesses at the expense of small businesses. Again, are you opposed to the policy change?

Like usual, I don't think you have a damn clue what you're blabbering about.

 

are all republicans scardey cats? my goodness.

 

If these companies have legitimate, honest concerns about the impact of these new laws, I would think these hearings would be an opportunity for them to relay those concerns directly to the lawmakers.

Do you have a copy of Waxman's letter? Does anything in there suggest that this is to be a locked-room interrogation?

Edit:
Here's the letter:

http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20100326/Stephenson.Letter.pdf

[rquoter]
On March 23,2010, President Obama signed health care reform into law. One of the top priorities of the House Energy and Commerce Committee will be to ensure that the law is implemented effectively and does not have unintended consequences.

After the President signed the health care reform bill into law, your company announced that provisions in the law could adversely affect your ability to provide health insurance. AT&T stated in its March 26,2010, filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it intends to take a charge of approximately $1 billion in the first quarter of 2010. As a result of the legislation, the company says it "will be evaluating prospective changes to the active and retiree health care benefits offered by the company."l

The new law is designed to expand coverage and bring down costs, so your assertions are a matter of concern. They also appear to conflict with independent analyses. The Congressional Budget Office has reported that companies that insure more than 50 employees would see a decrease of up to 3% in average premium costs per person by 2016.2 The Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers from leading U.S. companies, asserted in November 2009 that health care reform could reduce predicted health insurance cost trends for businesses by more than $3,000 per employee over the next ten years.3

The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will hold a hearing on April 21, 2010, at 10:00 a.m. in Room 2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building to examine the impact of the new law on AT&T and other large employers. We request your personal testimony at this hearing.

To assist the Committee with its preparation for the hearing, we request that you provide the following documents from January 1,2009, through the present: (1) any analyses related to the projected impact of health care reform on AT&T; and (2) any documents, including e-mail messages, sent to or prepared or reviewed by senior company officials related to the projected impact of health care reform on AT&T. We also request an explanation of the accounting methods used by AT&T since 2003 to estimate the financial impact on your company of the 28% subsidy for retiree drug coverage and its deductibility or nondeductibility, including the accounting methods used in preparing the cost impact statement released by AT&T this week. We ask that you provide the requested information by April 9, 2010. For purposes of this request, the term "senior company officials" includes all company officials at the level of Vice President and above for the company or any subsidiary. Attachments to this letter provide additional information about responding to Committee document requests and testifying before the Committee.

If you have any questions regarding this request, please contact Meredith Fuchs with the Committee staff at (202) 226-2424.
[/rquoter]

 

Why have you still not answered the question? Do you agree with the policy change here? (Or do you even know what it is)?

Strange, given that you claimed Democrats were whining in an article that only contains whining quotes from Republicans. You might want to re-evaluate who has their head so far up a political party, since it's gotten to the point of affecting your reading comprehension ability.

 

I think the letter's request of 'any documents including emails sent to or prepared or reviewed by senior company officials regarding HCR' is overstepping. That can imply an investigation rather then a review.

They should be satisfied with the company's calculations, assumptions and analysis of the costs.

And...as I suspected...the whole kerfuffle is just partisan talking points mined from standard SEC filings.

 

There's got to be something wrong at AT&T. Are they really so big that the impact on them is 6 to 30 times as much as it is on these other big companies? Assuming those other companies aren't inflating the estimate of their expenses already.

 

maybe AT&T is 6 to 30 times larger than the other companies listed.

 

It's connected to the retirees' health insurance, so part of it has to do with what kind of health insurance the company provides to its' retirees, and how many retirees are in the system.

 

I heard this morning that companies have to take these charges in the same quarter that the new legislation is enacted or they lose that ability. Seems to me the IRS will ultimately rule on the validity of the amounts these companies are stating.