By Pete the Banker
AT&T Inc. will book $1 billion in first-quarter costs related to the health-care law signed this week by President Barack Obama, the most of any U.S. company so far. A change in the tax treatment of Medicare subsidies triggered the non-cash expense, and the company will consider changes to the benefits it offers current and retired workers, Dallas-based AT&T said today in a regulatory filing.
AT&T, the biggest U.S. phone company, joins Caterpillar Inc., AK Steel Holding Corp. and 3M Co. in recording non-cash expenses against earnings as a result of the law. Health-care costs may shave as much as $14 billion from U.S. corporate profits, according to an estimate by benefits consulting firm Towers Watson.”
Congressional architects of the Health Care are concerned citing “unintended consequences” of the new law sent a letter to AT & T requiring management to testify about the costs the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. “The new law is designed to expand coverage and bring down costs, so your assertions are a matter of concern,” the subcommittee said in the letters.
Perhaps Congressional Committee members haven’t completed reading the bill and discovered the litany of corporate taxes included?
Congressional members also suggested that the costs conflicted with that of the Congressional Budget Office which “…reported that companies that insure more than 50 employees would see a decrease of up to 3 percent in average premium costs per person by 2016.” This, of course, is the same CBO that underestimated the budget deficit over the next decade by “only” $8 Billion, curiously disclosing that discrepancy only days after passage of the Health Care Bill.
Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com
