The health care reform bill has inspired an AT&T strategy that involves increasing its profits by billions of dollars via denying employees health insurance. Flickr photo.

Health care reform is inspiring corporations to dream up creative strategies that avoid the obligations required by the health care reform bill. A cold-hearted genius at AT&T may have found the ultimate way to make health care reform backfire on the law’s best intentions of eventual universal coverage. The new health care law requires companies to pay a penalty for denying employees health care. It may turn out that paying the government penalty costs far less than providing coverage.

Corporate health care reform maneuvers

The quest for universal coverage spawned the idea to drop health care benefits. Fortune reports that we know this because of other cynical corporate maneuvers over health care reform. When President Obama signed the health care bill, AT&T and Verizon made headlines announcing hits on their projected earnings of about $1 billion. Why? The health care bill ends tax deduction for the federal retiree drug-benefit subsidy. For corporations, this subsidy was an instant cash loan they didn’t have to pay back. The government gave them money they didn’t earn to pay for retiree drug benefits, which they were allowed to deduct from their taxable earnings.

The announcements by AT&T and Verizon that health care reform would cost them billions of dollars infuriated Congressman Henry Waxman. He accussed them of grandstanding to exaggerate the cost of health care reform on employers. As chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, he ordered them to turn over documents related to how they were dealing with health care costs.

Health care bill: unintended consequences

The unintended consequences of the health care bill are starkly outlined in the documents. Fortune reports that an AT&T PowerPoint slide entitled “Medical Cost Versus No Coverage Penalty” shows that 2009 medical costs were $4.7 billion. The federal penalty for denying coverage is $2,000 per employee. With 283,000 employees, AT&T would be penalized $600 million. By denying its employees health care, AT&T could possibly increase its profits by $4.1 billion.

Health insurance companies slither

After the health care reform bill passed, health insurance companies joined AT&T and Verizon in trying to weasel out of the law. It didn’t take long for Big Insurance to look for loopholes in the health care reform law. Starting Sept. 23, the health care bill will ban health insurance companies from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions. The New York Times reported on March 29 that insurance lawyers are claiming the bill’s “fine print” allows them to refuse to cover children with pre-existing conditions such as asthma, diabetes, orthopedic problems, birth defects and other illnesses.The insurance companies said the law only requires coverage for pre-existing conditions if a policy is sold–it doesn’t require the insurance companies to allow access to a policy. Riiiiiight.

Health insurance: profits or policies

Can companies be so cold-hearted to actually deny benefits because of health care reform? Fortune reports that companies say certain aspects of the health care reform bill will increase the cost of providing health insurance. Parents will be able to keep children on their plans until they are 26 years old, a benefit they say will cost millions of dollars a year. They also say they won’t be able to pass the full amount of a tax on “Cadillac insurance plans” on to their employees.

If companies like AT&T and Verizon can rake in billions of dollars in profits by not providing health care coverage, you can bet they will follow the money.

Birthers probably wonder if his medical license is from Kenya, too (Photo: Examiner.com)

Sen. McCain has already made it known that he didn’t approve of the original $1 billion allotted for the Cash For Clunkers bill, so he definitely doesn’t approve of funneling $2 billion more into it. He will do all he can short of a filibuster (the GOP can’t pull that off since the Democrats have a super majority) to stop the additional funding. Good luck, John. By running out of money so quickly, it could be argued that Cash For Clunkers has been an overwhelming success. That is, the Obama administration got what they wanted in less than two weeks, when they had allotted several months to get thousands of gas-guzzling cars off the road. Now, if I can convince you to try no fax payday loans and short term loans when your budget needs a bridge to payday – and do it in that little time – this little venture here would be equally successful.

The auto industry definitely needed a boost

And cornerstones of the American economy (like Ford Motors) got it in July, largely thanks to the Cash For Clunkers bill. I don’t care how long it took Cash For Clunkers to achieve it’s goal… it was successful. And I now believe that it shouldn’t be extended, because too many taxpayers will come to depend on such a program over time. I like the description that it was supposed to “prime the pump” for automotive industry sales, not become a permanent fixture. Whether people are going to truly be able to afford the Cash For Clunkers bill vehicles they’ve obtained is another matter.

But did Cash For Clunkers help the Obamacare movement?

And by Obamacare, know that I’m referring to the current effort to reform the healthcare system. Clearly, the amount of time and money that would be involved in making the Cash For Clunkers bill program a success was underestimated. That has led to scores of conservative commentators saying that if they miss the cost estimate on something like Cash For Clunkers, just imagine was the Obama administration will do with health care reform.

An interesting blog post by Robert George on the NBC Bay Area Web site points out the above alternative view of the Cash For Clunkers goings on. What if the costs for universal health care are being underestimated? We know that Americans were quick to lap up the Cash For Clunkers deal. If we’re talking taking care for oneself, would that be even more in demand? Apply for no fax payday loans and short term loans while you think about it.

Not so much

Americans show every day just how much they care about their vehicles versus their own bodies. Constant washing and maintenance, pushing their credit to the limit, all part of that love affair with the automobile. Yet the majority of people in this country don’t take proper care of themselves. Smoking, overeating, lack of exercise, damaging the environment and having it come back to them in a big way with a rise in skin cancer due to ozone holes… and that’s just the beginning.

But George spins this as fiscal irresponsibility. It’s a common argument against Obama’s health care plan, and the fact that Cash For Clunkers ran out of money as quickly as it did won’t help dispel that notion. $1 trillion over 10 years for Obamacare? Seems unlikely, but whatever the case, we must be willing to pay for the health of our population. Trim the fat from anywhere; I’d suggest obsolete defense contracts that are left on the books merely because they keep people close to Republican congressmen and women employed.

It won’t make Obama’s battle any easier

If Obamacare is going to make it as it needs to, Democrats are going to have to remain unified behind the notion that there will be areas to cut. There have to be, considering how many taxpayers we have. That money has to be going somewhere, and if we can cut out the pork projects, I’m sure there’s enough money to make universal healthcare a reality.

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Apparently, this is what the healthcare industry does in its spare time (Photo: bedlammagazine.com)

If you live in Los Angeles, you may have seen them already. If you surf the World Wide Web for your news, you’ve likely seen it by now. It’s the Obama Joker poster, seen here. Many people will think this is funny; personally, I don’t find illiteracy and a general lack of reading comprehension to be humorous.

If you’ve seen Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker in “The Dark Knight,” you know that the Joker’s platform was one of anarchy. He simply wanted to sit back and watch the world burn, as Alfred Pennyworth puts it. He’d sooner set fire to a mountain of money instead of distributing the wealth, simply because he can. Money means little to him, or just as much as a hammer and nails would to someone with a home repair job to do. For normal people, no fax payday loans and cash advances serve a purpose. I do not advocate burning them.

Socialism isn’t anarchy

Governance is order, even if we’re referring to self-government or something else along the lines of libertarianism. The Joker relishes disorder, particularly the pain and confusion it can cause. If the most beneficial type of socialism is geared to keep the most harmful elements of human behavior in check for the good of the whole, then we can easily see that the Joker is not a socialist. He hungers eternally for maximum damage.

No joke – change is needed

A writer for the Examiner wonders where this Obama Joker poster came from. It’s been appearing on freeway off-ramps and underpasses in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles. Some are outraged, others are simply confused (which the Joker would have loved), but what seems quite clear is that this is a protest against President Obama’s movement toward universal health care for Americans.

In general, Obama’s wants health coverage for the uninsured while keeping health care spending in check.

Preparing to battle the misinformation

Sheryl Stolberg and David Herszenhorn report for the New York Times that Obama and Democrats in Congress are entrenching themselves for a major offensive against the campaign of anti-health care reform misinformation. Clearly the machine is broken when it comes to the greatest number of people having adequate or affordable coverage in America, so change is necessary. Yet those who oppose Obama’s plans of late offer little to nothing in the way of change. Or at best, they would suggest stopgap reforms to health insurance while laying off the necessary reform to the health care industry as a whole. Why? Because health insurance companies have deep pockets!

If you need to fill your pockets, no fax payday loans and cash advances are available. Apply here today!

Check your humanity at the door, GOP!

Obama, says the NY Times, wants to make it clear that attacking the entire diseased system will “protect consumers by ending unpopular insurance industry practices, like refusing patients with pre-existing conditions.” Senior Obama advisor David Axelrod says that the president wants to convey that “this is going to give people who have insurance a degree of security and stability, the protection that they don’t have today against the sort of mercurial judgments of insurance bureaucrats.”

Republicans say this will be too expensive to institute, but how do they suggest change without expense? Perhaps they think no change is better, as families continue to suffer? I hope the insurance giants are paying the Republicans well to abandon their humanity.

Inciting to riot, which is in fact a felony

Large health insurance industry trade groups like America’s Health Insurance Plans are calling for sheeple to “confront Democrats at public meetings,” for the sheer purpose of distraction. No healthy debate, just sent people in to make noise and cause a ruckus. I’d hitch my star to such idiocy any day! Seriously, no.

America needs civil conversation. But that conversation needs to be based on fact rather than innuendo. Republicans are mobilizing, attempting to argue that quality of care will go down while costs will skyrocket. Republican Representative Mike Pence of Indiana claims that Obama’s proposed coverage will include “more than $800 billion in new tax hikes” and offer up “harmful cuts” to Medicare. That’s a big one that health insurance industry Republican cronies are using to scare the aging baby boomers. Yet how do those claims gel with the Health Insurance Consumer Protections the White House is promising? They don’t. Somebody’s lying to you here with trumped up statistics.

Speaking of trumped up statistics, consider the source

The status quo is not good enough. It never was. (Photo: southernstudies.org)

There are polls somewhere that indicate that the American public is “growing uneasy” with the debate over reforming health care. A recent New York Times/CBS News survey indicates that Obama still has support, but it is waning somewhat. No doubt the Republican scare campaigns and Obama Joker posters have something to do with that. But let’s consider the discussion in the video below.

Republicans who site statistics that supposedly prove that Obama’s plan will backfire appear to cite the same source each time for their information: the Lewin Group. This is supposedly an independent think tank, but the truth is that the Lewin Group is in fact funded by UnitedHealth Group – one of America’s largest health insurers. Talk about maintaining the status quo! Here’s a tidbit about UnitedHealth Group, courtesy of the Washington Post. It has to do with data used to determine how much (or in this case how little) consumers are reimbursed for out-of-network care:

In January, UnitedHealth agreed to a $50 million settlement with the New York attorney general and a $350 million settlement with the AMA, covering conduct going back as far as 1994.

Settlements and payment of this nature don’t typically burden honesty companies. Republicans, do you seriously want to take your information against Obama’s health care plan from a convicted wrongdoer – from the belly of the beast?

Anti-health care reform Republicans are the real jokers here

And I mean that in the most sickeningly hyper-capitalist way possible. Massive profit, minimal payout – the way of America’s health insurers – was never good enough for America. Now that we have the opportunity to institute change, people make Obama joker posters. Striking idea in clown makeup, but you misunderstand the concept of socialism, the concept of anarchy – and you simply waste the time of people who have brains and know how to use them.

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