Sounds bad, doesn't it? But wait...

"The $1 billion is a third of AT&T's most recent quarterly earnings.
In the fourth quarter of 2009, the company earned $3 billion on revenue
of $30.9 billion."

So, what they may have to spend is only one third of the earnings of one quarter. They had revenue of $30.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009, and earnings of $3 billion. Which means if those figures were true for all year, they had revenue of over $120 billion, and earnings of approximately $12 billion. I think they will survive after paying the $1 billion, as it will leave them earning of $100 billion. I'd say that was a pretty good year. But of course, there's no accounting for unbridled greed.

haha, ok, you have a point.

Well, the $1 billion can either go to help a lot of people who really need it, or into the pockets of a few people who don't need it at all. After all, it isn't as if the $11 billion left isn't going to be a damn good profit for them.

I know where I think it needs to go.

Put on an old DVD last night and saw John Grisham's "The Rainmaker", starring Matt Damon and Danny De Vito. It's about an insurance company that denied the claim of a paitent needing a bone marrow transplant. Too bad that wasn't shown during the Health Care debate. It is victional of course, however it vividly portrays the greed of insurance companies at the expense of the patient.

The article mentioned the fact that companies might suspend retirees prescription drug coverage. Well, that is what happened a few years ago when the prescription drug coverage went into effect for seniors. My husband worked for a very large company and his prescription benefits were cut, only coming into effect when we reached the "donut hole" which we did last year and discovered this coverage entailed quite detailed and frustrating paperwork. Also I've mentioned this before, but we were required to get prescription drug insurance, and I do mean required. We purchased it for $39 a month for each of us in February of 2007. In July of this year, we received a coupon book from January on and called to find out if we had to pay since January and they said we did. So we each had to pay about $280 each.

But that isn't the end of the story. To our knowledge and the paperwork we filled out in 2007, the amount of payment was to come out of social security, but when figuring this out this did not compute. I called and asked how this had been paid and they said, "It hadn't. We made a mistake and it was never taken out of your social security, but to go back to Feb. 2007 would be too much of a financial burden for most people, so we are only asking for the premium from January."

My point here is that there are many things that have occurred that should not have. The system before was in great need of repair. What was supposed to happen didn't always happen. Now we have a step to change things, a mandate so to speak. We all need to work at it, to be knowledgeable, to call with questions, to complain.

Our pharmacist was also having to pay $200 more for my drugs than he was getting reimbursed from my insurance or co-pay. We said we would make up the $200, but he said it was not right and he was working with other pharmacists to get this corrected. Just another of the inconsistencies occurring out there that need fixing in some way. And that was before the health bill passed.

Carol

Carol,
I doubt that we will hear of all the benefits of the new program, but we will hear of everything that goes wrong. Those that opposed the program will continue to oppose it until they personally need it.