By Warner Todd Huston ——Bio and Archives--June 5, 2010
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Here’s the irony. When Democrats removed the tax exemption for the subsidy, they claimed to be striking a blow against corporate welfare. What they ignored, however, was that the subsidy was actually a previous Congress’s attempt to protect taxpayers. In creating the Medicare Part D drug benefit in 2003, Congress added the subsidy—which amounted to about 28 percent of the cost of coverage—to encourage companies that already offered drug benefits to retirees to keep paying those benefits, rather than dumping them onto taxpayers. By taxing the subsidy, Democrats are effectively encouraging companies to scrap the benefit entirely and ask Uncle Sam to foot the bill.So benefits that are now partly borne by corporations, partly by employees, and partly by a government subsidy will likely now either be wholly forced on the businesses — which will then raise prices of its product to cover costs — or will be wholly covered by the taxpayers through total assumption by government once corporations drop the benefit. Howard sums up with a lament that shows that opposition to Obamacare is justified.
In short, Obamacare is barely two months old, and the nation is already discovering what opponents of the legislation argued all along: that it will cost taxpayers far more than expected and send health-care spending into the stratosphere.And once all these “unexpected costs” (as Democrats will likely term them) become manifest the only solution will be to cut services just like the British are now doing. Hence, Palin’s much feared “death panels” will appear full grown and authored by Barack Obama.
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Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary, sometimes irreverent often historically based, is featured on many websites such as Breitbart.com, among many, many others. He has also written for several history magazines, has appeared on numerous TV and radio shows.
He is also the owner and operator of Publius’ Forum.