The sweeping reform of the health-care system could exact a high price on some businesses and deprive two million Americans of health insurance, industry and union leaders say.

Some companies have already announced charges they will take based on the new law.  AT&T said it would take a one-billion-dollar charge in the first quarter of 201., Caterpillar said it had set aside a charge of $100 million and 3M estimated a provision of up to $90 million.

Economist Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, however, appeared skeptical about the swift corporate announcements. "It's hard to see immediately, two seconds after the bill, that they have to take these charges," he said. "How much is this an issue of trying to establish a base for which they can raise prices in the future?"

For Brian Bethune, chief U.S. financial economist at IHS Global Insight, the elimination of the tax break is "just one piece of the jigsaw puzzle" of reform and noted that "other corporate taxes are buried in this bill."

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.

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