Those who have saved for retirement…ie shareholders…take heed. This is coming your way too:
Insurer Prudential Financial Inc. said Monday that it will take a $100 million charge in the first quarter in relation to the recent health care overhaul legislation.
The life insurance and annuities provider said in a regulatory filing that it will take the charge against earnings in the first quarter.
Prudential joins a growing list of companies that have said they will take accounting charges because of the health care bills. AT&T said last week it would take a $1 billion charge in the first quarter. AK Steel Corp., 3M Co., Caterpillar Inc., Deere & Co. and Valero Energy have also said they would take smaller charges.
All the while the Obama plan of vilifying capitalism is in full gear:
Democrats clearly plan to blame the private sector for all the downsides of their health plan. In a private lobbying session, President Obama told liberal lawmakers that the bill is only “a beginning.” Any increase in costs and premiums — both of which are inevitable — will be attributed to corporate malfeasance requiring yet more government intervention.
Democrats can’t say they weren’t warned about the coming write-downs. Companies began to receive a tax-free, deductible subsidy in 2003 to continue prescription-drug coverage for their retirees, a ploy to keep the firms from dumping retirees into the new government prescription-drug program. Outside experts and big employers counseled against ending the deductibility, pointing out that it would adversely affect the companies’ financial statements immediately. (Account- ing rules require corporations to note the long-term effect of the new liability right away.)
These warnings got shelved under a category ensuring their brusque dismissal: Information Inconvenient to the Passage of Health-Care Reform. Now that the prediction has come to pass, it’s all AT&T’s fault.
And if that isn’t good enough for ya check out our Vice President:
“It’s a simple proposition to us: Everyone is entitled to adequate medical health care,” Biden says. “If you call that a ‘redistribution of income’ — well, so be it. I don’t call it that. I call it just being fair — giving the middle class taxpayers an even break that the wealthy have been getting.”
The top quintile of Americans earned 55.7% of pretax income and paid 69.3% of federal taxes in 2006, according to the most recent CBO data. But the Vice President isn’t buying the idea that the wealthiest are already paying their fair share, noting the top 1% of earners get 22% of all income made in the U.S.
Socialism and mediocrity here we come.
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I honestly do not know how anyone can listen to the drivel coming out of his mouth anymore. He repeats the mislead of the top 1% receiving 22% of the income, as if that is a true measure of “fairness”. We are supposed to believe that the income of the top earners is somehow at the expense of the lower wage earners and that they are taking more than their fair share of the wealth produced. Never in the liberals arguments does hard work, desire, drive, or ingenuity come into it. It is always about the “luck of the draw” and in liberals minds, that means an unfairness has happened. Imagine going to Las Vegas and having the casino confiscate your winnings and give everyone passing through their doors a “fair share” of it, all because you happened to have the luck to actually win, while others didn’t.
The democrats have long based their whole existance on class warfare. I keep hoping that more Americans will wake up and realize that they truly are Marxists before it is too late. Our federal government now control 48% of private industry!
Curt, the $100 million does not represent anything the insurer will “lose” because of Obamacare. It is just a charge . . . a non-cash allocation. But if you and the GOPers want to become the water-carriers for the health insurance companies, be my guest. Or as Obama put it, “Go for it!”
Yeah, REDISTRIBUTION……..obviously to Biden, that’s another ‘big fng deal’……..
Useless Biden was chosen for V.P. because the president with his deep inferiority complex doesn’t want any inteligent person next to him.
Biden, and the rest of the Obama cartel should be put on trial for ruining the country.
Obviously somebody learned “God dam America” from ayatolla Wright, and it looks like he is succeding !
@BRob
Read each or these lines 5 times each:
Yes it’s a “charge”.
A “charge” is a “change” in the previously reported forecast.
A “charge” because of a “change in forecast”. (I just wanted you to really get it.)
A “change in forecast” is required to be reported as soon as information is available.
A “requirement” as stated by the Sarbanes–Oxley LAW.
Now those companies have just been “invited” to explain why they obeyed the law.
Because you are willfully stupid, I will remind you that the LAW was approved by the House by a vote of 423–3 and by the Senate 99–0. Your “EVIL then-President Bush signed it into law in 2002.
Maybe you and your Fascist friends now running our country could find another posit other than the now-boring straw-man, as shown in the following idiotic and painfully-stupid statement:
But if you and the GOPers want to become the water-carriers for the health insurance companies, be my guest.
WTF-ever, moron. They are following the law…A law that changes the previously-projected (and HORRIFYING!!11!!) 4-7% profit estimations into less than that. If it was MORE, they would have to report that TOO!!!!!
You should be estatic. Those EVIL corporations are both; making less profit to grow and expand with….and putting less money into the pension funds, and the stock market.
You may now go back and receive further instructions.
If it’s so fair, then how come the Obama administration and Congress are exempt from this legislative abomination?
Yeah, look at those Republicans. Running against Obamacare? Pure insanity and stupidity. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to look at the latest polls on this issue.
*reads Gallup, Rasmussen*
Well, would you look at that – an epic fail for the Democrats!
Maybe Joe could explain to me how stealing from those who earned what they have and giving it to those who have adopted a welfare lifestyle is fair.
A few weeks ago I was making a decent living that I work around 45 hours a week for. I was eating regularly and had health insurance I could afford! Now I am paying for people who do not work, many because they choose not to, and people in our country illegally. So the cost of everything I purchase went up. ….. Why wouldn’t I be happy! Redistribution is Redistribution.. I don’t care what you call it!
Most 10 year olds have a better grasp on reality than these folks.. One thing is Biden makes Obama look smarter!
Pray Hard for this country People, Pray HARD!