By Rich Lowry"Henry Waxman is peeved. He expects corporate America to swallow health-care reform without a peep of protest — and, apparently, without revealing new costs to shareholders or the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Last week, AT&T announced it will take an immediate $1 billion write-down thanks to a new tax in the health bill that will cause Caterpillar ($100 million) and Deere & Co. ($150 million), among other large employers, to do the same. The benefits consultancy Towers Watson estimates that the change may reduce corporate profits by as much as $14 billion over time.
That's real money. For comparison: It's enough to bribe Sen. Ben Nelson of the Cornhusker Kickback 140 times over; it's three times the amount Democrats poured into a (failing) weatherization program that once was a highlight of the stimulus bill; it represents 10 percent of the supposed deficit reduction of health-care reform over 10 years. It may be that the health bill's most immediate, high-profile effect is the destruction of shareholder wealth.
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