"Wal-Mart Cuts Health Care Coverage For Most Part-Timers In Wake Of Obamacare" . . .
. . . Gallup: "More Still Say Health Law Has Hurt Instead of Helped Them"
The AP reported yesterday, “Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to eliminate health insurance coverage for some of its part-time U.S. employees in a move aimed at controlling rising health care costs of the nation's largest private employer. Wal-Mart told The Associated Press that starting Jan. 1, it will no longer offer health insurance to employees who work less than an average of 30 hours a week. The move affects 30,000 employees, or about 5 percent of Wal-Mart's total part-time workforce, but comes after the company already had scaled back the number of part-time workers who were eligible for health insurance coverage since 2011. The announcement follows similar decisions by Target, Home Depot and others to completely eliminate health insurance benefits for part-time employees. . . .
“The announcement comes after Wal-Mart said far more U.S. employees and their families are enrolling in its health care plans than it had expected following rollout of the Affordable Care Act, which requires big companies to offer coverage to employees working 30 hours or more a week or face a penalty. It also requires most Americans to have health insurance or pay a penalty. . . . Wal-Mart now expects the impact of higher health care costs to be about $500 million for the current fiscal year, or about $170 million higher than the original estimate of about $330 million that it gave in February.”
As The Wall Street Journal editors write today, this was another predictable consequence of Obamacare. “Wal-Mart cites its inability to manage higher-than-anticipated health expenses. Perhaps—though wasn’t ObamaCare supposed to bring those costs down? Obviously the company is also responding rationally to ObamaCare’s incentives. With a subsidized government alternative now open for business, and since corporations aren’t liable for a penalty for not covering people who work fewer than 30 hours a week on average, cost-control logic says to send such coverage ballast over the side. Other retail and grocery chains including Target, Home Depot and Trader Joe’s have already done the same. ObamaCare’s critics predicted that such insurance dumping was inevitable . . . .”
Is it any wonder, then, that more Americans still say Obamacare has hurt them than has helped them? According to Gallup, “Although more provisions of the Affordable Care Act have taken effect over the past year, more Americans still say the law has hurt rather than helped them . . . . Since the start of this year, the percentage saying the law has helped them has increased from 10% to 16%, while the percentage saying it has hurt them has also gone up, and by a similar amount, from 19% to 27%. At the same time, overall attitudes about the law have stayed constant over the past year. Currently, 41% of Americans approve of the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as ‘Obamacare,’ while 53% disapprove. . . . Americans' views on the long-term effect of the healthcare law on the healthcare situation in the U.S. have barely budged over the last year, and remain more negative than positive. Forty-six percent say the law will make things worse in the long run, while 36% say it will make things better and 15% say it will not make much difference.”
Obamacare is still causing Americans to lose their health care plans, increasing premiums, narrowing provider networks, generating burdensome and confusing regulations, disrupting health care markets with ill-conceived incentives, reducing Medicare Advantage payments and raising taxes. This unpopular law needs to be repealed and replaced with solutions that will actually lower health care costs instead of growing government.
Tags: Obamacare. Wal-Mart, cuts healthcare coverage, Gallup To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
The AP reported yesterday, “Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to eliminate health insurance coverage for some of its part-time U.S. employees in a move aimed at controlling rising health care costs of the nation's largest private employer. Wal-Mart told The Associated Press that starting Jan. 1, it will no longer offer health insurance to employees who work less than an average of 30 hours a week. The move affects 30,000 employees, or about 5 percent of Wal-Mart's total part-time workforce, but comes after the company already had scaled back the number of part-time workers who were eligible for health insurance coverage since 2011. The announcement follows similar decisions by Target, Home Depot and others to completely eliminate health insurance benefits for part-time employees. . . .
“The announcement comes after Wal-Mart said far more U.S. employees and their families are enrolling in its health care plans than it had expected following rollout of the Affordable Care Act, which requires big companies to offer coverage to employees working 30 hours or more a week or face a penalty. It also requires most Americans to have health insurance or pay a penalty. . . . Wal-Mart now expects the impact of higher health care costs to be about $500 million for the current fiscal year, or about $170 million higher than the original estimate of about $330 million that it gave in February.”
As The Wall Street Journal editors write today, this was another predictable consequence of Obamacare. “Wal-Mart cites its inability to manage higher-than-anticipated health expenses. Perhaps—though wasn’t ObamaCare supposed to bring those costs down? Obviously the company is also responding rationally to ObamaCare’s incentives. With a subsidized government alternative now open for business, and since corporations aren’t liable for a penalty for not covering people who work fewer than 30 hours a week on average, cost-control logic says to send such coverage ballast over the side. Other retail and grocery chains including Target, Home Depot and Trader Joe’s have already done the same. ObamaCare’s critics predicted that such insurance dumping was inevitable . . . .”
Is it any wonder, then, that more Americans still say Obamacare has hurt them than has helped them? According to Gallup, “Although more provisions of the Affordable Care Act have taken effect over the past year, more Americans still say the law has hurt rather than helped them . . . . Since the start of this year, the percentage saying the law has helped them has increased from 10% to 16%, while the percentage saying it has hurt them has also gone up, and by a similar amount, from 19% to 27%. At the same time, overall attitudes about the law have stayed constant over the past year. Currently, 41% of Americans approve of the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as ‘Obamacare,’ while 53% disapprove. . . . Americans' views on the long-term effect of the healthcare law on the healthcare situation in the U.S. have barely budged over the last year, and remain more negative than positive. Forty-six percent say the law will make things worse in the long run, while 36% say it will make things better and 15% say it will not make much difference.”
Obamacare is still causing Americans to lose their health care plans, increasing premiums, narrowing provider networks, generating burdensome and confusing regulations, disrupting health care markets with ill-conceived incentives, reducing Medicare Advantage payments and raising taxes. This unpopular law needs to be repealed and replaced with solutions that will actually lower health care costs instead of growing government.
Tags: Obamacare. Wal-Mart, cuts healthcare coverage, Gallup To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
2 Comments:
There's more crap coming folks as business must become compliant...Remember who did this & VOTE 'EM OUT!
Like @SenMarkPryor that votes w/ @BarackObama’s liberal agenda that’s hurting this nation. #RetirePryor
Post a Comment
<< Home