re: #600 engineer dog

hmmm, yeah, now i see where some people have predicted that:

The fine for AT&T would have amounted to $2,000 per employee, costing the company a grand total of $600 million a year. Maintaining benefits, meanwhile, will cost the firm some $4.6 billion

however, i can find no evidence that large companies are doing this. on the other hand

The Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy annually surveys employers and found no significant drop in coverage as of the end of 2009, when more than three-quarters of companies offered health insurance.

But insurance brokers say the pace of terminations has picked up considerably since then among small companies, of which there are thousands in Massachusetts. Many of these companies — restaurants, day-care centers, hair salons, and retail shops — typically pay such low wages that their workers qualify for state-subsidized health insurance when their employers drop their plans.

on the third hand, if mid size and big companies want to attract and keep employees, they would become less competitive in the hiring marketplace if they drop health insurace but other firms keep it. i was just talking to a manager at a big firm who was thinking of going somewhere else because the company had stopped stock grants for people at his level

in the end all will be forced into public option… that is and always was the plan.