The Patriot Post® · ObamaCare's Corporate Tax Burden

Think ObamaCare won’t adversely affect the economy? Think again.

Numerous companies released adjusted earnings reports and forecasts last week after the health care bill and its accompanying mandates and tax increases became law. The numbers don’t look good.

Many corporations receive subsidies for 28 percent of their costs in paying for retiree prescription plans under the 2003 Medicare drug bill, which is a can of worms in and of itself. Now, those subsidies will be taxed. “The 2003 legislation encouraged companies to stay in the game and continue to fund their retirees’ prescriptions,” said John Deere spokesman Ken Golden. “Otherwise, the retirees would go onto the Medicare prescription program, which would cost the government more money.” What do they get for doing what government asked? A greater tax burden.

* John Deere announced that its expenses will increase by $150 million, primarily in the second quarter.

* AT&T announced Friday that it will take a $1 billion hit in the first quarter.

* Caterpillar, which Barack Obama touted for the “help” it got via the stimulus (it didn’t really help), said that ObamaCare will cost the company $100 million this quarter.

* Zoll Medical Corp. chairman and chief executive officer Richard Packer says, “We believe that the tax will cost us somewhere between $5 million and $10 million a year. Our profit in 2009 was $9.5 million.” Anyone think that will help Zoll develop more medical devices?

* Medtronic, another manufacturer of medical devices, warned that Obama’s new taxes on its products could cost 1,000 jobs. Maybe that’s what the president meant when he said he would focus on “jobs, jobs, jobs.”

All in all, according to Bloomberg, taxes and other fiscal burdens imposed by ObamaCare will cost as much as $14 billion in U.S. corporate profits. Just wait until all the provisions of the law kick in.

According to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), however, this is “the cost, I think, of having the kind of America we want to have.” By “we,” of course, he means his fellow socialists in the federal government.

Update: Investor’s Business Daily reports that Democrats are planning to attack the very corporations they have victimized. “Rep. Henry Waxman vowed to haul CEOs into hearings after they revealed just how much ObamaCare will cost their firms. It’s an absurd war on bookkeeping, from a Congress desperate to avoid heat for this fiasco.”