Obamacare’s Prescription for Disaster: $14 Billion Cost to Industry

By: David A. Patten

Major business groups want a provision of healthcare-reform repealed because it could cost American corporations up to $14 billion at a time when people desperately need jobs.

James A. Klein, president of the American Benefits Council, warns the same tax-law change that led AT&T to take a $1 billion charge last week represents “a serious mistake that is having negative and unintended consequences.”

On Wednesday, Boeing became the latest company to announce a write down of value due to healthcare reform, deducting $150 million from its first quarter earnings.

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The announcements by the corporations — who were complying with SEC-enforced accounting rules that require sharing of information on the objective value of their corporations — has set off quick retaliation by Democrats.

House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman declared the write-downs appear to “conflict with independent analyses.”

He ordered the CEO’s of major corporations to defend their write-offs during congressional hearings next month, asking them to provide “any analyses” that the companies had conducted on healthcare costs, “including e-mail messages, sent to or prepared or reviewed by senior company officials related to the projected impact of health care reform…”

House Minority Leader John Boehner shot back: “Instead of interrogating America’s private-sector job creators, Congress should be listening to them, heeding their warnings about the effects of this deeply flawed new law, and replacing it with reforms that will help them get back to creating jobs.”

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U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas J. Donahue blasted Waxman’s decision to haul the companies before Congress simply because they’ve complied with legal requirements to inform investors of how the changes enacted by Congress impact their viability.

“They’re searching for a way to blame these businesses for a mess that the lawmakers themselves have made,” Donohue wrote.

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