Verizon seeks nearly $1 billion charge because of healthcare reform

  We can now add Verizon to the list of companies who are taking a non cash charge in order to offset the costs they will incur because of the healthcare reform law. AT&T has already announced they will take a $1 billion charge and several other large companies are doing likewise on a smaller level.

  The unintended consequences– or are they intended– of the healthcare reform law are already beginning to take shape as these charges mean that these companies are going to be faced with cost cutting measures. Whether it be cutting benefits to employees or just cutting employees, the effects of this legislation could be wide ranging.

  In a way I would like to think that this administration was just too short-sighted to see this happening, but part of me wonders if this was part of the plan all along. With these companies being forced to either cut benefits to their employees or possibly lay off employees to make up for the added costs of doing business it means that more people will be dependent on the government to provide them what their employers once did. I find it hard to believe that nobody in the administration saw this coming so I have to believe that this is what they intended and hoped would happen.

  These non cash charges are being taken out in order to offset the loss of a tax deduction that these companies received before the healthcare reform law went into effect. While those on the left may be happy that the big, bad corporations are finally getting screwed by losing their tax exemptions, they would probably be surprised to learn that these companies received these deductions as a form of subsidy to keep retired employees healthcare insurance benefits so that the government would not have to incur the costs of putting these people on Medicare.

  It appears as if the same government that once helped employers keep people off of the government programs is now more interested in getting as many people as possible onto those very same government programs. I don’t believe that this was accidental.