ObamaCare: Non-Wealthy Actors Need to Vote Republican in 2010

This, I think, very much sums the thinking behind all those wealthy Hollywoodists in favor of ObamaCare: [emphasis added]

Actor Sam Robards, the son of Lauren Bacall and the late Jason Robards, was visiting Washington last week with his children and Danish-born wife. Chatting in front of the White House gate, he said he tried to follow news coverage of the overhaul but conceded that “I’m not totally clear” on the details. He said he was glad that he got good coverage through the Screen Actors Guild so he didn’t have to worry about it.

The couple previously lived in Denmark, which has universal health coverage. They applauded the overhaul’s aim of extending coverage to nearly all Americans.

When you’ve Got Yours, there’s no real reason to spend a whole lot of time thinking through something. Considering his own resume and those of his parents, like a lot of name actors, and unlike the rest of us, Sam Robards will probably never have to worry about the real-world effects of ObamaCare on his life or that of his family’s. This gives him the luxury of blindly backing his team (the Left) and using the talking points about “more coverage for all Americans” to feel nice and selfless about his admittedly ignorant self.

It’s both emotionally and intellectually easy to blindly back something when you need never fear it will harm you. No matter how bad things get as the federal government chokes the medical system with their bureaucracies and chases good healthcare professionals into other fields; as premium costs rise and all these new taxes cripple an already crippled economy — Sam Robards and his actor-y ilk will float blithely above it all comforted by their big fat pile of screw-you money. And should healthcare rationing become a reality, he’ll most certainly be in that top tier that keeps our wealthy European socialist friends out of those long lines.

In the meantime, those of us living in the real world — those of us who aren’t wealthy and preferred the devil we knew over the arch-devil that is the federal government — we have just had a new anxiety shoved into our lives regarding our most important asset: our own health and that of our loved ones.

Rank and file actors, the majority of the SAG ranks who are not wealthy, pedigreed movie stars but still count on the union for their health benefits, might have to face a worry of their own fairly soon.

Though very few ObamaCare benefits kick in before 2014, some of the harsher penalties are just around the corner that might make it much more expensive for SAG to continue their prescription drug coverage:

Beginning in 2013, employers will no longer be permitted to take an income tax deduction for the Medicare Part D retiree drug subsidies they receive from the federal government, under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010, and the reconciliation bill enacted a week later.

The health reform law reverses an element of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, which established the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit for seniors and provided a 28 percent subsidy from the federal government to employers that offer prescription drug coverage to retirees. Employers had received the subsidy tax free, plus they were able to deduct the subsidy from their corporate income taxes as an incentive to continue providing retirees with a drug benefit.

While the subsidy will remain nontaxable, it will not be deductible beginning in 2013. This, some employers warn, will significantly increase the cost of providing prescription drug coverage to retirees, with an impact that must be reported on companies’ current financial statements.

“America’s largest employers are facing an unpleasant choice: drop their retiree prescription drug coverage or take an earnings hit that could seriously damage the company,” says James A. Klein, president of the American Benefits Council, an employer group.

Will this change in the tax law affect SAG like it will Caterpillar, John Deere and AT&T? I don’t know. SAG does offer a prescription drug plan, and a couple of rank-and-file actors I know are legitimately concerned about how this tax increase might harm their benefits.

From the looks of this November press release/lobbying letter, a number of the Hollywood unions, not just SAG, were certainly concerned about another ObamaCare tax, the “Cadillac Tax”:

However, we are deeply troubled by the provisions of the bill passed by the Senate Finance Committee that would levy a new tax against so-called “Cadillac plans.” The individual unions and guilds of the entertainment industry have struggled and sacrificed for decades to negotiate and defend their own Taft-Hartley health insurance plans. By taxing those plans, the Senate Finance Committee bill would place catastrophic burdens on maintaining the benefits that our members have fought so hard to win and preserve.

Maybe the Hollywood unions are part of that sleazy exemption the fat cat lobbyists won postponing their having to be burdened with the “Cadillac Tax” until 2018 (while the rest of us pay it). But seven years isn’t very far away, is it? And how many non-wealthy actors will count on SAG for their health and pension benefits in 2018?

And why won’t it be a “catastrophic burden” for SAG and the others then?

If these massive tax increases are about to hit your health benefits as hard as SAG themselves believe they will, that leaves you non-wealthy actors out there with a pretty simple choice. You can either support conservative politicians (in secret, of course) who will do everything in their power to kill the ObamaCare Monster before it causes too much chaos, or you count on these “good” liberals to spread a little of their wealth your way to help the victims of their mindless, self-aggrandizing advocacy.

I know where my bet would lie.