Sense on Cents

Not that you would find it in any media outlets (believe me, I’ve looked for the last hour), but earlier today President Obama publicly acknowledged that American companies will be forced to take immediate charges to income from the recently enacted healthcare reform.

Recall that members of Congress railed on a number of corporate executives for highlighting these charges shortly after the legislation was passed. Rep. Henry Waxman initially called a special meeting to castigate the corporate executives, but then tucked his tail between his legs and cancelled that meeting when it became apparent that he did not truly understand the basic accounting principles necessitating these charges.

Fox News highlighted this mid-April development in writing, Canceled: Hearing That Would Have Grilled CEOs on Healthcare:

Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., has canceled a hearing intended to grill CEOs who took a charge against profits because of the health care reform bill.

The cancellation came after they realized what everyone already knew – that the companies were required to do what they did because of accounting rules. Waxman and others had reacted with outrage and accused the companies of doing it – in essence, to make health care reform look bad.

AT&T took a $1 billion charge and other companies including Caterpillar, John Deere, and Valero Energy, and 3M took hundreds of millions in charges because of the health care reforms.

In addressing the Business Council today, President Obama initially addressed apprehending the suspect in the New York City bombing attempt, prior to speaking about the economy, jobs, and the oil spill. All of those topics received media coverage.

I will admit my jaw dropped when early on in his remarks I heard him acknowledge the reality of these corporate charges for healthcare. Did he willingly acknowledge these charges, or was he compelled to make this point by the executives themselves during a dinner last evening?

We certainly did not hear much about these charges during the healthcare debate. Can you say media control? However much like that proverbial tree falling in the forest, if the media does not report it, can the White House admit it never happened?

You can say what you want about healthcare, but the simple fact is these immediate multi-billion dollar charges are a jobs killer . . . and I thought jobs were supposed to be the highest priority in Washington. Obviously not, although nobody would have known that unless you were actually watching his speech.

Truth, transparency, and integrity in our general media? Why would they want to do that?

LD

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 4th, 2010 at 12:45 PM and is filed under Barack Obama, health care reform, Obama Administration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.