Obamacare! may squeeze some firms, retirees

Just to be a prick since it seems union members who wanted Obamacare are the ones most likely to get hurt by the changes, I am not so sad over this development.

David Wyss, a Standard & Poor's economist, acknowledged that health-care reform "will raise cost for employers" but stressed the increase would not be "that big."

The reform "applies only to heavily unionized companies," Wyss said, where employees enjoy contract-protected benefits.

"It's not going to affect most companies" which "don't provide such generous plans" for retirement and whose retired workers use the federal government's Medicare plan for drug coverage.

Still, 10 major companies, including Boeing, Xerox and Metlife, have expressed concern that the drug subsidy could be taxed, warning that would likely result in "significant" reductions in employer-sponsored retiree prescription drug coverage.

Some retirees could turn to Medicare for drug coverage if they are at least 65 years old, but if not they would have to bear the high cost of coverage alone or drop it entirely.

Gerry Shea, assistant to the president of the AFL-CIO union, said that "between 1.5 and 2.0 million retirees will likely lose their coverage."