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Employers United: An Empirical Analysis Of Corporate Political Speech In The Wake Of The Affordable Care Act, Elizabeth Weeks Leonard, Susan Scholz, Raquel Meyer Alexander

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Is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) bad for business? Did the countries' most prominent companies game the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosure process to make negative political statements about ObamaCare? Immediately following the ACA's enactment on March 23, 2010, a number of companies drew scrutiny for issuing SEC filings writing off millions – and in AT&T's case, one billion dollars – against expected earnings for 2010 alone, based on a single, discrete tax-law change in the ACA. Congressional and Administration officials accused the firms of being "irresponsible" and using "big numbers to exaggerate the health reform's …