I was going to skip the blog today, because either there's a lull in stuff going on in the world, or I just haven't tripped over it yet. And, whatever else is on my mind has been on these pages already. There are things going on in my life, that's for sure, but none of it particularly blogworthy.
My having made the decision to take a rest from typing today was fine with me, and maybe fine with whoever reads these pages, too. And then all of a sudden -as I was flipping TV channels- I came across a panel discussing the health care bill. From the chatter on the panel, it seems that once again politicians have not only shot themselves in the foot, they may have blown one off.
It seems that although the legislation won't become effective until several years in the future, big business being what it is, and publicly held companies in particular being what they are, accounting rules, and the SEC, and a whole alphabet of other departments and overseers demand that preparation for the future be begun right now. So, to comply with regulation and both present and future liability, business entities are accruing funds immediately.
What that means is, the money has to come from somewhere. A simple look in the corporate crystal ball indicates that, especially for huge, household name organizations a lot of bucks are going to be needed to pay for employee's health care. So, from where will those funds accrue? Employees themselves of course, in cutbacks on other benefits, cancelled perks and unaffordable pay raises. And from customers in price increases, cancelled discount plans and reduction of already diminishing services.
Depending on the size of the mushrooming potential hit in the pocketbook to businesses of all sizes, and its trickle down effect on employees, customers and shareholders, before this bill even kicks in, an awful lot of employees and customers will have kicked in themselves.
If I'm not mistaken, the general consensus on the impact of the bill on voters was that since the bill wouldn't take effect until 2014, and newly covered folks are being benefited, the administration would not only likely not suffer for its passage, but might increase in popularity. Yet, with the new wrinkle of people's pocketbooks potentially being slammed right out of the box, maybe that thought should be rethunk.
Last but not least, and on the same subject, it's been mentioned that tort reform and malpractice issues were apparently left out of the health care bill entirely. Thus, I guess it's not odd that the largest contributors to the heads of the Democrat party turn out to be lawyers. Though they contribute individually, so they aren't as obvious as say, a union or business organization, when you add up the amounts contributed by attorneys and look at the total, it's huge. Here again, I really don't want to get into party politics specifically, it's just that that's what's in the news now. So, if you have a problem with what I've written above, sue me.
That's it for today folks.
Adios
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