The Republican Party and major corporations have joined forces in the first major rearguard attack on health care reform, charging that the cost of complying with "Obamacare" is resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in added business expenses.
The crime that reform is guilty of: Slashing corporate welfare.
Under the previous system, major corporations were subsidized by the government to provide prescription drug coverage to their employees. At the same time, corporations could claim on their tax returns that it was they -- not the taxpayers -- who paid for the drug coverage, and could write the expense off as a tax deduction.
Health care reform cuts out that fat. The corporations still get taxpayer money to help pay for their employees' drug coverage, but they can no longer continue the fiction that they're using their own money to do it.
Being forced to operate on a diet of leaner corporate welfare benefits will make U.S. companies less able to compete, Republicans argue. The charge-offs play into the line that Republicans are pushing -- namely that health care reform is a "job killer."
So far, Boeing, AT&T, AK Steel, 3M, Caterpillar, Deere, Prudential and Valero Energy have all said that reform is forcing them to take significant charge-offs on their balance sheet. The welfare cuts don't go into effect for several years, but accounting rules require the reduction to be taken in the year the law is passed.
"A jobs narrative is emerging in the wake of the CAT, John Deere, Verizon (and many other) announcements as it is becoming clear that the health care bill is having an immediate and negative effect on the economy," said Ken Spain, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. "In short, the bill is a job-killer." ...
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