Swing Votes

You sly little CongressCritter, you :-)

That doesn't add up either. AT&T's health care costs are increased at least $250M per year just for retirees (i.e., $1B every four years for that one item alone).

AT&T will certainly have higher costs for their 283,000 employees too, so $1B a year is entirely possible, or more.

We'll see.

So the good news is $1B AFA(we)CT, and that only destroys 10,000 jobs. That's 30,000 jobs created or saved, right?

-- Cheers, James Arthur

Ok, full explanation as I heard it...

This charge is only for a change in the prescription drug benefits. Presently, the gov. lets them write off 100% of the cost of drugs by its employees, PLUS there is a 25% (exact percentage not in memory... ;-) ) subsidy payment from the gov. What is changing is that they can have one, or the other, but not both. (in 2013!) So, this is the charge that they can see now. They don't know yet what other changes will happed...

Charlie

10,000 useless jobs evidently. If they can trim 10-30 thousand jobs and still operate they didn't need the people anyway. I promise not to use AT&T so the rest of the guys and gals aren't over worked.

No more free drugs??? The horror of it all.

Police officers might resent being labeled as 'leftist wenies'.

Indeed it does have that reputation, across the Usenet.

Bullshit.

I would *suspect* that the $1B is the current value of the additional drug charges over the next 30 years. Or perhaps the current value of the tax on the benefit. Or perhaps just the increased tax for the quarter. ;-/

Before you call bullshit, maybe you should come see for yourself?? OTOH, never mind, we don't need another damn yankee in south Mississippi.

You really are a fool.

Yes, that's about right. Here's the footnote on pg. 82 of AT&T's 2009 Annual Report:

"1. During 2009, 2008 and 2007, the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 reduced postretirement benefit cost by $255, $263 and $342. [...]" (numbers are millions of dollars)

That deduction is going away. It was meant as an incentive for employers to continue offering Rx benefits for retirees, thus saving Medicare from paying those same benefits.

Getting rid of subsidies is fine with me. This change is, however, part of the uncounted cost of Obamacare--they're shifting the full retiree Rx cost to the private sector, who will now have to pay 100 cents of every Rx benefit rather than the 70-odd cents they used to pay.

So, the cost of doing business is *higher*, but it counts as a

*savings* (to the government) in the CBO figure.

One assumes that AT&T has to apply this to the pension funds of current workers too, if Rx benefits are part of their retirement packages, and set aside additional reserves for the increased future cost anticipated. Or, just chop the benefit.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

Not necessarily. Many employers will simply discontinue coverage and Obamacare will have to pick up the whole deal.

...or discontinue retirement benefits.

You sure don't want to be hanging around in Mississippi. They use real rope.

...Jim Thompson

You can say what you want about the south, but I have never heard of anybody retiring and moving north.

I live in the South, you dimwitted liar. If you want a real bigot just look at your typical NE leftist weenie.

Ok, I'll bite.... where in the south??

Why do you bite? KRW has never contributed anything of import on any group he has posted to. And speaking of bigotry "typical NE leftist weenie" is the epitome of bigotry, and he doesn't even realize it.

scott

Well, he's from a state with too many letters, for one thing. Plus, it's sandwiched right in between Alabama and Louisiana. 'Nuff said.