While I thought I might be making follow-up posts to this one, I thought they would be about more companies going public with what Obamacare was actually going to cost them. Instead, this is about White House and Democratic Congressional reaction to the information put forth by companies like AT&T, Caterpillar, 3M and so on. Lead by Congressmen Henry Waxman, Democrats will now have company executives testify before Congress, supplying any and all internal company documents concerning health care reform, including interactional employee emails. Given the proclamation made by Nancy Pelosi prior to passage of the bill "we have to pass this so you can see what is in it", it is a given that large businesses couldn't know what the direct impacts on their companies would be until they could "see what is in it". They saw. They know. They said what they know. Now, that is reason for Congress to harass them by bringing these companies before them to testify as to why their numbers don't come anywhere close to the numbers that Congress gave to the CBO. How dare these companies tell the truth? They must be lying, so Congress will now initiate the political equivalent of a prostate examination on any company that exposes the true costs to them of this legislation.

It's been a banner week for Democrats: ObamaCare passed Congress in its final form on Thursday night, and the returns are already rolling in. Yesterday AT&T announced that it will be forced to make a $1 billion writedown due solely to the health bill, in what has become a wave of such corporate losses.

This wholesale destruction of wealth and capital came with more than ample warning. Turning over every couch cushion to make their new entitlement look affordable under Beltway accounting rules, Democrats decided to raise taxes on companies that do the public service of offering prescription drug benefits to their retirees instead of dumping them into Medicare. We and others warned this would lead to AT&T-like results, but like so many other ObamaCare objections Democrats waved them off as self-serving or "political."

Perhaps that explains why the Administration is now so touchy. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke took to the White House blog to write that while ObamaCare is great for business, "In the last few days, though, we have seen a couple of companies imply that reform will raise costs for them." In a Thursday interview on CNBC, Mr. Locke said "for them to come out, I think is premature and irresponsible."

Meanwhile, Henry Waxman and House Democrats announced yesterday that they will haul these companies in for an April 21 hearing because their judgment "appears to conflict with independent analyses, which show that the new law will expand coverage and bring down costs."

In other words, shoot the messenger. Black-letter financial accounting rules require that corporations immediately restate their earnings to reflect the present value of their long-term health liabilities, including a higher tax burden. Should these companies have played chicken with the Securities and Exchange Commission to avoid this politically inconvenient reality? Democrats don't like what their bill is doing in the real world, so they now want to intimidate CEOs into keeping quiet."

The entire article is available here. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704100604575146002445136066.html