The one thing we know about the financial “reform” now moving toward what looks like eventual congressional approval is that it will be oversold, says economist Robert Litan of the Kauffman Foundation. We will be told that it will forever prevent a repetition of the recent financial crisis; that it will root out corruption on Wall Street; that it will eliminate “bailouts”; that it will protect consumers against greedy lenders. In the present anti-Wall Street mood, no one wants to be accused of coddling America’s money merchants.

What can we really expect?

History counsels caution. Every financial reform, even if mostly successful, ultimately gives way to another because there are unintended consequences or unforeseen problems. Sheila Bair, the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., has noted that the reforms of the early 1990s, which curbed risk-taking within the banking system, perversely shifted lending to the largely unregulated “shadow banking system” — mortgage brokers, specialized lenders and “securitization.” The central aim of today’s reform is to avert another financial panic. A panic is not a bubble or just big losses. These are inevitable and, in part, desirable: Without losses, investors would become reckless. A panic is a stampede of selling and hoarding, driven by fear, that threatens the financial system and, through it, production and jobs. A panic occurred in September 2008 when Lehman Brothers failed. Distrusting most financial institutions, investors and money managers fled to safety (a.k.a. Treasury bills).

By its nature, a panic is unanticipated. Reform may resemble generals fighting the last war….

Read it all.

And speaking of “responsibility.” A new poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center throws new light on the question of what’s-all-the-anger-about? In The Wall Street Journal, Pew Research Center president Andrew Kohut notes a national mood edgy and fractious, in the context of “a dismal economy, an unhappy public, and epic discount with Congress and elected officials.” Thirty percent of Americans, it seems, “view the federal government as a major threat to their personal freedoms.”

How come? What goes on here anyway, behind the oratorical battle smoke? A whole lot more goes on than one might surmise from tuning in to the Rush and Bill Show.

A cardinal principle of democracy is, don’t do things to demos — the people — against demos’ own ideas, notions and viewpoints. For instance, take over the health care system.

At the time of the final Senate and House votes on health care, polls indicated majority opposition to the bill, not the least reason being, apparently, that hardly anyone understood what the bill contained and proposed. Polls continue to show large majorities in favor of repeal.

No matter. The White House said we needed the bill.

Read it all (featured on the op-ed of the local paper today which is why I happened to see it).

Washington is gearing up for a big debate: What to do about the exploding national debt, the unsustainable annual budget deficits and what to do about the Bush tax cuts that expire at the end of the year.

Alarm bells are ringing over the size of the national debt, now equal to 84 percent of the country’s gross national product — the highest level since after World War II. The credit-rating agency Moody’s is hinting that the federal treasury’s Triple A bond rating is in jeopardy and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is warning that China, the United States’ largest foreign creditor, may start charging higher interest rates.

“The arithmetic is, unfortunately, quite clear,” Bernanke said. “To avoid large and unsustainable budget deficits, the nation will ultimately have to choose among higher taxes, modifications to entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, less spending on everything else from education to defense, or some combination of the above.

“These choices are difficult, and it always seems easier to put them off — until the day they cannot be put off any more.”

Read or listen to it all.

The next day, at a breakfast with reporters in Washington, Douglas Elmendorf, the head of the Congressional Budget Office, confirmed that his economists have begun studying how to write a value-added tax, a form of national sales tax, because of growing congressional interest in drafting such a measure.

Elmendorf reminded the journalists of the grim news contained in his agency’s analysis of President Obama’s budget proposals. Agreeing with Bernanke that the current course is “unsustainable,” he said that unless something changes, the U.S. will emerge from the Obama years spending one-quarter more than it collects in revenue — 25 percent compared to 19 percent of the gross domestic product.

Closing the gap “can’t be solved through minor changes,” he said. Revenues projected under current laws would barely be sufficient to pay for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, defense and interest on the national debt. Everything else would depend on finding new revenues — or borrowing.

Read the whole piece.

The U.S. must start to prepare for challenges posed by an aging population with a credible plan to gradually reduce a soaring public debt, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday.

Health spending is set to increase over the long term as the U.S. population grows older, posing challenges to the country’s already strained finances, the Fed chief warned.

Read it all.

A record-low percentage of U.S. voters — 28% — say most members of Congress deserve to be re-elected. The previous low was 29% in October 1992.

Read it all.

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….”

On top of AT&T’s $1 billion, the writedown wave so far includes Deere & Co., $150 million; Caterpillar, $100 million; AK Steel, $31 million; 3M, $90 million; and Valero Energy, up to $20 million. Verizon has also warned its employees about its new higher health-care costs, and there will be many more in the coming days and weeks….

Read it all.

When the common good takes a back seat to political and corporate interests, all, especially the vulnerable, are at risk. As the largest provider of non-governmental, non-profit health care in this country, the Catholic Church, and those who work as Catholic agencies and organizations, have a special obligation to vulnerable populations, such as the unborn, those with disabilities, and those at life’s end. These populations cannot be compromised in an effort to secure “the greater good.” This is utilitarianism, seeking the greatest good for the greatest number, and never equates to the common good.

It is undeniable that the enacted Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act includes public funding of programs that provide abortion on demand. No accounting practices, or requiring enrollees or employees to write separate checks for abortion coverage, changes that fact. The plan would mandate that in each regional Exchange only one of the qualifying plans not include abortion. Furthermore, there is no restriction on coverage of assisted suicide costs. President Obama’s executive order cannot override federal law. In fact, his Order merely requires adherence to the Act. Specifically, it states: “This Executive Order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural , enforceable at law or in equity against the United States.” While he attempts to assure us that the seven billion new dollars for Community Health Centers will be applied consistent with the Hyde Amendment, the placement of that language within the Act does not make it subject to the cost-sharing provisions for abortion coverage. Most significantly, Beal v. Doe, 432 U.S. 438 (1977) dictates that, without statutory provisions for the Hyde amendment within each enacted law, “essential services” are to include abortion.

Both individuals and employers will be penalized for the absence of health care coverage. There is no evidence of conscience protections for individuals or employers, who may find themselves having to write separate checks for undesired abortion procedures that happen to be in the plan of choice. There is limited evidence of conscience protections for providers, and the legislation does not provide for protection against coercion of health care providers and employers related to contraceptives or abortifacients. Here we see, most significantly, that a house divided eventually will pay the price for taking compromising positions. Yet, unfortunately, in public opposition to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ call for rejection of this legislation as it was written, the Catholic Health Association and fifty-five women religious urged its passage.

Read it all.

Poor Bart Stupak. The man tried to be a hero for the unborn, and then, when all the power of the moment was in his frail human hands, he dropped the baby. He genuflected when he should have dug in his heels and gave it up for a meaningless executive order.

Now, in the wake of his decision to vote for a health-care bill that expands public funding for abortion, he is vilified and will forever be remembered as the guy who Stupaked health-care reform and the pro-life movement….

Stupak, too, knew that the executive order was merely political cover for him and his pro-life colleagues. He knew it because several members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops explained it to him, according to sources. The only way to prevent public funding for abortion was for his amendment to be added to the Senate bill.

Clearly, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the president didn’t want that. What they did want was the abortion funding that the Senate bill allowed.

Thus, the health-care bill passed because of a mutually understood deception — a pretense masquerading as virtue. No wonder Stupak locked his doors and turned off his phones on Sunday, according to several pro-life lobbyists who camped outside his office.

Read it all.

Third, the combination of pressure and disinformation used to break the prolife witness on this bill among Democratic members of Congress ”“ despite the strong resistance to this legislation that continues among American voters ”“ should put an end to any talk by Washington leaders about serving the common good or seeking common ground. Words need actions to give them flesh. At many points over the past seven months, congressional leaders could have resolved the serious moral issues inherent in this legislation. They did not. No shower of reassuring words now can wash away that fact.

Fourth, self-described “Catholic” groups have done a serious disservice to justice, to the Church, and to the ethical needs of the American people by undercutting the leadership and witness of their own bishops. For groups like Catholics United, this is unsurprising. In their effect, if not in formal intent, such groups exist to advance the interests of a particular political spectrum. Nor is it newsworthy from an organization like Network, which ”“ whatever the nature of its good work — has rarely shown much enthusiasm for a definition of “social justice” that includes the rights of the unborn child.

Read it carefully and read it all.

The White House says it isn’t worried that 13 state attorneys general, including South Carolina’s, are suing to overturn the massive health care overhaul, and many legal experts agree the effort is futile.

But the lawsuit, filed in federal court seven minutes after President Barack Obama signed the 10-year, $938 billion health care bill, underscores the divisiveness of the issue and the political rancor that has surrounded it.

Read it all from the front page of the local paper.

Diocese of Connecticut Bishop Suffragan James E. Curry, speaking to ENS from the House of Bishops meeting in Camp Allen, Texas, called the legislation “a wonderful step that continues our national walk toward accessibility.” The Episcopal Church’s longstanding commitment to health care reform is deeply rooted in the Baptismal Covenant, he said.

“For 2,000 years followers of Jesus have been at the forefront of efforts to provide for the health and well being of all people. We do this because the law of love compels us to care for everyone,” Diocese of Maryland Bishop Eugene T. Sutton said in an e-mail to ENS. “While people of good will disagree about some controversial provisions in the new health care legislation, in the main, Christians everywhere should rejoice that our society has taken a major step toward ensuring that all citizens have adequate and equitable access to health care without fear that sickness will result in their financial ruin. For that alone we say, ‘Praise God!'”

Curry and Sutton were among the seven Episcopal bishops who travelled to Washington, D.C. in September 2009 to advocate on Capitol Hill for health care reform.

Members and bishops of the Episcopal Church, the church’s Washington-D.C.-based Office of Government Relations, its Episcopal Public Policy Network and the ecumenical faith community continued to advocate for the health bill and press representatives to pass the bill up to March 21, when the bill passed the House by a vote of 219-212.

Read it all.

Nobody knows how this bill will work out. It is an undertaking exponentially more complex than the Iraq war, for example. But to me, it feels like the end of something, not the beginning of something. It feels like the noble completion of the great liberal project to build a comprehensive welfare system.

The task ahead is to save this country from stagnation and fiscal ruin. We know what it will take. We will have to raise a consumption tax. We will have to preserve benefits for the poor and cut them for the middle and upper classes. We will have to invest more in innovation and human capital.

The Democratic Party, as it revealed of itself over the past year, does not seem to be up to that coming challenge (neither is the Republican Party). This country is in the position of a free-spending family careening toward bankruptcy that at the last moment announced that it was giving a gigantic new gift to charity. You admire the act of generosity, but you wish they had sold a few of the Mercedes to pay for it.

Read it all.

5. Four million people will lose their employer-based plans.

The new health care law will impose a list of benefits each health care plan will have to offer if they are to remain in business. The Congressional Budget Office also estimates that about 4 million people would lose their employer-based plan and be forced to buy plans on the new government exchanges.

6. Medicare will cut services along with costs.

The bill makes $528 billion in cuts to Medicare, including a $136 billion reduction for Medicare Advantage. The Medicare Advantage cuts will force 4.8 million seniors off the popular plan by 2019. An additional $23 billion in cuts to Medicare will come from a panel charged with slashing Medicare spending.

7. The bill will not pay for itself.

The CBO found that the bill would reduce the deficit by $138 billion over 10 years, but the savings was achieved by leaving out a $208 billion provision lawmakers will have to enact later to ensure doctors are adequately paid for treating Medicare patients. When the “doc fix” is included in the bill, it runs $59 billion in the red over the next decade. And former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin said that “if you strip out all the gimmicks and budgetary games” the 10-year deficit would exceed $560 billion.

Read it all.

Even when the “fixes” that have to be approved by the Senate are made, the health-care bill will still be something of a mess. But it’s a glorious mess, because it enshrines the principle that all Americans have the right to health care — an extraordinary achievement that will make this a better nation.

It may take years to get the details right. The newly minted reforms are going to need to be reformed or at least fine-tuned, and those will not be easy battles. But the social movements that allowed Obama to become president and Pelosi to become speaker proved that the arc of history bends toward fairness and inclusion.

Needed change must not be thwarted, even if some people find it hard to accept. Obama got it right in his remarks following the vote: “We did not fear our future. We shaped it.”

Read it all.

Seventy-five years ago, on August 8, 1935, the United States Congress passed the first sweeping legislation creating a welfare safety net for the American people, the Social Security Act 1935. Its champion was President Franklin D. Roosevelt….

Support in Congress was both overwhelming and bi-partisan.

Thirty years later, in July 1965, Congress passed the second major piece of the national safety net, the Medicaid and Medicare act.

It, too, passed by an overwhelming majority with bi-partisan support. That bill was championed by another Democratic President, Lyndon B. Johnson….

Now comes the third major piece in the safety net when tomorrow (local time), President Barack Obama signs the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010, introducing almost universal health care.

The bill passed yesterday in the House by a slender and contentious majority, 219 vote to 212.

Not a single Republican voted ‘yes’.

Read it all.

This is a very good discussion of some of the real substance of the legislation.

The process was wrenching, and tainted to the 11th hour by narrow political obstructionism, but the year-long struggle over health care reform came to an end on Sunday night with a triumph for countless Americans who have been victimized or neglected by their dysfunctional health care system. Barack Obama put his presidency on the line for an accomplishment of historic proportions.

The bill, which was approved by the Senate in December and by the House on Sunday, represents a national commitment to reform the worst elements of the current system. It will provide coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans, prevent the worst insurance company abuses, and begin to wrestle with relentlessly rising costs ”” while slightly reducing future deficits.

Read it carefully and read it all.

If you don’t care how this affects businesses, you should. Some 15 million people in this country don’t have jobs ”” and another 12 million work part-time but want full-time positions.

If America’s major employers are hit with huge, government-mandated cost increases during an economic downturn, do you really think they’ll hire more when the economy starts growing on its own again? Of course not.

Despite this, the White House predicts its plan will “cut costs” for businesses. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi even makes the bizarre prediction that passage of health reform will lead to 400,000 new jobs “immediately,” and millions more down the road.

Such claims don’t hold water because health reform includes $569.2 billion in new taxes, at last count 160 new bureaucracies and regulations, and 16,500 new IRS agents to collect all those taxes….

Read it all.

In approving the most sweeping piece of social legislation since the mid-1960s, Democrats proved that they can govern, even under challenging circumstances and in the face of significant internal divisions.

To understand how large a victory this is, consider what defeat would have meant. In light of the president’s decision to gamble all of his standing to get this bill passed, its failure would have crippled his presidency. The Democratic Congress would have become a laughing stock, incapable of winning on an issue that has been central to its identity since the days of Harry Truman.

This is why Republicans decided to put everything they had into an effort to defeat the measure. They said its passage would hurt the Democrats in November’s elections. They knew that its failure would have haunted Democrats for decades.

Without this concrete achievement, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi kept warning her troops, Democrats would have been stuck with their votes for reform bills and nothing to show for them. The real and imagined flaws of their proposed system would have been hung around their necks, yet they would have had no way of demonstrating its advantages.

With success comes the chance to defend what is, in many of its particulars, the sort of plan a majority of Americans said they wanted. Yes, it is imperfect and it won’t come cheap. But it fills a gaping hole in the American social insurance system.

Read it all.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., was right Sunday night when he hailed looming approval of an unprecedented expansion of the federal government’s health care role as “an historic moment.” Yet the House also made history by taking that giant step without a single Republican vote. Regardless of your opinion on how to cure what’s ailing our nation’s medical system, that lack of bipartisanship sends a disturbing signal about how deeply our nation is divided — and assures that this debate is far from over.

Our opinion remains that while major health care changes are needed, Obama-Care is a counterproductive regulatory behemoth that will impose devastating new financial burdens on both the private and public sectors.

That’s particularly alarming in these hard times of record federal deficits and high unemployment. Persisting poll trends show that a solid majority of Americans share that opinion.

But even those who think the president’s reform plan is sound should be troubled by the legislative machinations required to advance it….

Read it all.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn experienced the most significant legislative triumph of his congressional career Sunday evening as a historic health care bill extending insurance to 32 million Americans was passed.

Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat, ended a week that he said was the most exhausting of his 17-plus years in Congress by finally corralling the minimum 216 votes needed for the House to pass the landmark legislation.

“We have debated this issue for several generations,” Clyburn said on the House floor at 9:30 p.m. “The time has come to act. This is the Civil Rights Act of the 21st Century.”

Read it all.

House Democrats approved a far-reaching overhaul of the nation’s health system on Sunday, voting over unanimous Republican opposition to provide medical coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans after an epic political battle that could define the differences between the parties for years.

With the 219-to-212 vote, the House gave final approval to legislation passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve. Thirty-four Democrats joined Republicans in voting against the bill. The vote sent the measure to President Obama, whose yearlong push for the legislation has been the centerpiece of his agenda and a test of his political power.

After approving the bill, the House adopted a package of changes to it by a vote of 220 to 211. That package ”” agreed to in negotiations among House and Senate Democrats and the White House ”” now goes to the Senate for action as soon as this week. It would be the final step in a bitter legislative fight that has highlighted the nation’s deep partisan and ideological divisions.

Read it all.

Should the House pass the Senate bill and the package of reconciliation fix-its tonight, Senators will take over the reconciliation fix-its as soon as Tuesday.

That will set in motion a week or longer parliamentary floor battle with points of order, references to the budget act, the Byrd Rule and more.

Read it all

Congress was poised tonight to approve the boldest piece of American social legislation in half a century after President Obama issued a last-minute executive order to reassure anti-abortion Democrats who had been threatening to vote against his health reforms.

After 14 months of debate, the group of eight Democrats announced their support for a $940 billion health bill with just four hours to go until an historic vote that could transform Mr Obama’s presidency ”“ but could also cost his party dearly at elections later this year.

The Bill, if passed, will bring near-universal health coverage to the US for the first time in the country’s history by requiring individuals to buy insurance and subsidising coverage for those who cannot afford it.

Facing solid Republican opposition and multiple defections from their own ranks, Democrats needed 216 votes in the House to pass the Bill, which would outlaw abuses by the health insurance industry and extend coverage to 32 million Americans who now lack it.

Read it all.

On 25 March 1995, the Solemnity of the Annunciation, Pope John Paul II promulgated the encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae, on the value and inviolability of human life. Today, four days before the fifteenth anniversary of that glorious defense of the Gospel of Life, the Congress of the United States, led to this moment by the President of the United States, is poised to enshrine in American law a savage assault on human life and the freedom of conscience of those pledged to help heal the sick. Make no mistake: This is a dark hour in the history of our Republic, and the tyranny of abortion is about to be enshrined under the guise of health care reform as a public entitlement which will be paid for by public funds collected from every tax payer and from which, in due course, no doctor, nurse, hospital, or clinic will be permitted to withdraw on a conscientious objection. This is a dark hour in the history of our Republic, and we have been led to this hour by self-described Catholics.

It must be said that the general effort to change the ways in which we Americans pay for our health care is a prudential matter about which reasonable people are free to disagree in good conscience. Passionate arguments have been advanced in this debate by partisans of every viewpoint, and in most of these arguments no absolute moral truths have been at stake. But there is one absolute moral truth at stake now, and it is this: Abortion is a crime against God and man which no human law can legitimize. And as John Paul the Great taught us in Evangelium Vitae, not only is there no obligation to obey such laws; there is, instead, a grave and clear obligation to oppose such laws by conscientious objection and civil disobedience.

In these last days of this national debate, some voices have been raised by those who identity themselves as Catholic to say that the bill which will be voted on today does not provide funds for abortion, but that is simply false. Our Bishop Robert wrote to every priest of the diocese on Friday to say that “It is evident the current health care legislation before the House of Representatives violates the teachings of Jesus Christ and His Church in several areas. As pastors of souls we have an obligation to form our people to understand the end can never justify the means. The lives of the innocent unborn cannot be sacrificed so that health insurance can be extended to some who do not have it.” Then in a companion letter addressed to all the faithful of the Diocese of Charleston, Bishop Guglielmone asks all of us to oppose this legislation “because it will allow for federal funding of abortion and will not provide conscience protection for health care professionals and health care institutions.” The bishop then adds that “Unfortunately, some organizations and individuals have decided that it is better to pass something to help a few. We can never allow evil to be done for own personal gain or for the benefit of some. Abortion should not be a part of health care reform, nor financed with tax dollars.”

Read it all.

President Obama, rallying last-minute support for landmark health-care legislation nearing a crucial vote in the House, announced Sunday that he will issue an executive order after passage attesting that the bill is consistent with longstanding restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortions.

The arrangement won the support of a key bloc of anti-abortion House Democrats, whose leader, Rep. Bart Stupak D-Mich.), said at a news conference, “I’m pleased to announce we have an agreement.”

Appearing with Stupak were half a dozen other holdout Democrats. With them on board, “we’re well past” the 216 votes needed in the House to approve the health-care legislation, Stupak said.

Read it all.

In a final, urgent plea to prevent the passage of the current form of the Senate health care bill, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) on Saturday evening sent a letter to Congressmen asking them to vote “no.”

“For decades,” the letter says, “the United States Catholic bishops have supported universal health care. The Catholic Church teaches that health care is a basic human right, essential for human life and dignity.”

“Our community of faith,” the bishops continue, “provides health care to millions, purchases health care for tens of thousands and addresses the failings of our health care system in our parishes, emergency rooms and shelters. This is why we as bishops continue to insist that health care reform which truly protects the life, dignity, consciences and health of all is a moral imperative and an urgent national priority.”

Nevertheless, they add, “we are convinced that the Senate legislation now presented to the House of Representatives on a ”˜take it or leave it’ basis sadly fails this test and ought to be opposed.”

Read it all.

As the House Rules Committee labored to set the formal terms of the debate, the dispute over the abortion provisions was shaping up as a bitter stand-off between the abortion opponents, led by Representative Bart Stupak of Michigan, and lawmakers who favor abortion rights, led by Representative Diana DeGette of Colorado. At the center was Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to serve as House speaker, who is a champion of abortion rights.

The issue has divided Roman Catholic groups in the United States, with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops opposing the bill and other organizations, including the Catholic Health Association and a coalition of nuns from leading religious orders, favoring it.

In a similar showdown in November, Mr. Stupak succeeded in winning approval of tight limits on insurance coverage of abortions in the House health care bill. But the current package now includes language from the Senate-passed bill, negotiated by Senators Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Ben Nelson, who have built up solid credentials in their political careers as opponents of abortion.

Mr. Stupak and many of the lawmakers insisting on the tighter restrictions are Catholic, as is Ms. Pelosi, and all have cited their faith in justifying their position on the legislation.

Read it all.

Caterpillar Inc. said the health-care overhaul legislation being considered by the U.S. House of Representatives would increase the company’s health-care costs by more than $100 million in the first year alone.

In a letter Thursday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio, Caterpillar urged lawmakers to vote against the plan “because of the substantial cost burdens it would place on our shareholders, employees and retirees.”

Caterpillar, the world’s largest construction machinery manufacturer by sales, said it’s particularly opposed to provisions in the bill that would expand Medicare taxes and mandate insurance coverage. The legislation would require nearly all companies to provide health insurance for their employees or face large fines.

The Peoria-based company said these provisions would increase its insurance costs by at least 20 percent, or more than $100 million, just in the first year of the health-care overhaul program.

“We can ill-afford cost increases that place us at a disadvantage versus our global competitors,” said the letter signed by Gregory Folley, vice president and chief human resources officer of Caterpillar. “We are disappointed that efforts at reform have not addressed the cost concerns we’ve raised throughout the year.”

Read it all.