Dear Large American Companies
Like AT&T and Caterpillar.
If you deem it necessary to make note that you will be loosing millions of dollars due to the new health care legislation and how it effects the prescription drug program please at least try to explain why it will.
Headlines and press releases being touted now, show you as this meek victim of over reaching legislation that will cause you to pay more in benefits for prescription drugs. When, in fact, it isn’t the case.
You say: This new health care plan is going to cost us millions (a billion over years according to AT&T).
And people are believing that you are getting the shaft because they tend to not look a little closer as to the reason. Hell, I hear a popular radio show that uses this little tidbit to say how the government program is screwing companies. Granted this idiot speaks in generalities and really doesn’t know what the hell he is talking about. But that seems to be the majority of people when they bring this up as an argument against the new legislation.
The reality: You will lose a sweetheart deal made during the Republican overhaul of the Medicare Prescription drug program.
You know how it works. Back when Bush was President and the Republican controlled Congress wanted to pass Medicare reform for drugs (An unfunded program by the way and passed pretty much the same way as the health care bill was just passed) large companies needed some incentive to keep the benefits for your retirees to cover their drug cost because the Republicans knew that the minute they passed this you would drop that coverage and the medicare reform, already unfunded, would bloat with all the new enrollment of your retirees. So those nice Congressman added a provision that allowed you to still write off the cost of your benefits for covering those who otherwise would be on medicare AND they gave you a 28% subsidy on top of that.
I tell ya, I wish I had a sweet heart deal like that for my business. Being able to write off an expense that was paid for by the government would actually be great. But since I have only 5 employees and still pay for their benefits, I get screwed. And you want to bitch and moan about it now?
So essentially you were taking a write off for the full cost of the benefit while getting a kickback on 28% of that cost. Free money!
Now that the health care bill closes that hole. You won’t be able to write off the entire cost of the benefits you are getting money back from the government on, you are screaming that you’ll be losing money.
Will you be losing money? Yes. But it was found money anyway. It was money you shouldn’t have had in the first place since, for the past few years you have been writing off benefits on your taxes that were being paid for by me and every other tax payer.
So in other words. suck it up and pay your own damn way.
Originally published at A Fictional Skeptic's Life. You can comment here or there.