On today’s CNN’s State of the Union, Candy Crowley asked Michelle Bachmann about a recent poll indicating 61% of Americans want to keep or make changes to the Affordable Care Act, while only 38% want to repeal it.
Michelle Bachman responded:
“…In the last two days, we have found that there’s another report that just came out…how this is hurting the bottom line of major businesses, from GE to UPS to Dollar General. This is hitting their earnings, because the Affordable Care Act…”
So we thought we’d check how the earnings of those 3 companies were doing in their most recent reported quarters.
- Dollar General: “Dollar General Corporation (NYSE: DG) today reported record sales, operating profit and net income for its fiscal 2013 fourth quarter (13 weeks) and full year (52 weeks) ended January 31, 2014.”
- GE: “Excluding the 2013 NBCUniversal impact and restructuring and other charges, operating EPS was up 9% from the year-ago period.”
- UPS: “Operating profit for the quarter was $1.5 billion, down $106 million from the prior-year’s adjusted results. Unusually harsh weather weighed on operating profit by approximately $200 million, due to increased expenses and slower revenue growth…Gains from retail and healthcare customers drove higher revenue growth in the Distribution business unit.”
3 Questions For Michelle Bachmann That Arise From This Story
1. Since Dollar General is reporting “record” earnings, are you suggesting they are being impeded from even bigger record earnings by giving Americans easier access to health care? Who do you think is buying stuff in record amounts at dollar stores? We’d wager dollar stores to donut stores it’s many of the people who need affordable health care.
2. Hey, General Electric’s adjusted first quarter earnings were up, too. But here’s the question: are you just choosing companies with the name “General” in them because you like to talk using “general” talking points that don’t take into account what the “general” population thinks or cares about?
3. In the case of UPS, do you believe Obamacare is responsible for “unusually harsh weather?” This is somewhat surprising given that you apparently don’t believe in climate change. So we are assuming that you would say Obamacare and weather are not correlated, just like UPS earnings and “revenue growth” from “healthcare customers” may be unrelated to more people being able to afford healthcare.