First death panel canceled: Henry Waxman cancels HCR show trial

David Freddoso reports (via Kim Priestap):

House Energy and Commerce Committee spokeswoman tells me that Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., has indeed cancelled the April 21 subcommittee hearing in which CEOs were to testify about Obamacare. So far, the only indication of this change appears on the committee’s website is on the Republican minority ranking member’s site. In fact, the hearing still appears on Waxman’s committee calendar for that day.

Waxman had called the hearing in reaction to public statements by several companies — including Verizon, AT&T, and John Deere, among others — that Obamacare would cost them hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars because it laid a new tax on their retiree health benefit payments.

[…]

The CEOs, required by law to be honest about earnings projections, re-stated their bottom lines in reaction to Obamacare’s passage, earning the ire of Waxman and other Democrats.

Hearings on this matter would likely have proved an embarrassment to the Democrats and helped drag out discussion of Obamacare’s unexpected ill effects.

Twitter commenter pcan asked a good question earlier about this:

Will Waxman reimburse the companies that collectively probably spent Million$ preparing to comply w/his Show Trial?

Sure he will, right about the time he gets around to apologizing for calling Obama opponents unAmerican last year for not supporting The One’s agenda.

Although this is welcomed news, I’m not so sure the battle between Democrats and these corporations is over.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see the first death panel rescheduled for a later date. We’ll see.