Posted on 12/01/2012 12:14:56 PM PST by george76
And so the government takeover of our health care system begins:
Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, plans to begin denying health insurance to newly hired employees who work fewer than 30 hours a week..
...
By making the fine for not providing health care cheaper than providing health care, this was always the plan: to encourage employers to send us to the government.
Remember how Obama's big ObamaCare sell was, "You get to keep the health insurance you have"?
It was all a lie, a hustle, a con, a ruse…
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
How can this be? I thought WM doesn’t offer benefits? /IFCW
Walmart has been ramping down it’s employee benefits for years, making them nearly worthless.
But you’re correct, they have now just totally eliminated benefits for the private sector schmucks, like so many other big corps have been doing for the past 15 years.
I just can’t wait until people start getting their health care insurance bills at the end of January.
not a surprise
It makes no economic sense anymore for retail-level businesses to hire people full time or provide health insurance.
From Red Cross/Blue Shield to welfare. What a bargin. Just exactly what Obamagabe and his band of socialists want. Welcome to the Socialist States of America.
It'll be a honking hoot...Like Walmart, most employers are cutting hours for many years now avoid the ever escalating big med costs.
Can't wait to see the average Walmart 20 hour per week employee now having to pay for medical benefits, when it costs them about 70 bucks just to fill their tanks to get to work and back....Oh yeah!
On their off days they can beg for food and rent money.
people have already been getting messages about higher premiums and letters from their doctors saying they no longer accept Medicare..
Just the first step. The second is a massive wave of automation for retailers. Self checkout scanners don’t need health care.
20 hours a week and still get food stamps
what a world
I can.
But those that voted for this jerk and have no idea what’s coming they can eat it.
This has been the trend for over 15 years. Big med and big insurance have been jacking their rates up through the roof for well over a decade now.
All part of Obama’s plan. Employers end coverage and look like the bad guys. It’s the path to single payer healthcare.
20 hours a week a Walmart and having now having to pay for health insurance... How else would they eat?
For Christmas, if possible, I suggest these people scrap together a few dollars and exchange canned food for gifts.
Send a canned a SPAM to your favorite liberal for Christmas, gift wrapped of course.
Come on...Lets be honest...This cheet has been happening for over 15 years now...And was getting worse each year....It's no secret.
The msm has been quiet on Walmart lately. Guess this will get them revved up again and we’ll see nothing but slams against the company the next 6 months.
The real traves ty in ObamaCare is that most of your large, Multi-National companies support ObamaCare...even as they lament about it. The fine will always be cheaper than the coverage
Wal-Mart, once cheerleaded by many Free Trader Communist Globalists....is pretty much a liberal organization.
Health insurance is your individual responsibility, not your employer’s. Do you demand car insurance from your employer? Do you demand home insurance from your employer? So, why is this health insurance any different? Your health, your responsibility. The employer involvement was gateway to communism, which has now been realized with the full government involvement.
What about workers comp? Since it benefits employees, should the employees pay the premiums on that too?
The Obamistas messed up big time.
Those who are losing their company sponsored medical insurance, and who are not qualified for medicade, might take up kendo as a last resort.
Hope you knew that ~ if not, now you know. Had nothing to do with communism. Wasn't even the government's idea.
It’s not just Walmart. I pay almost 4 grand for premium plus a 3 grand deductible. I work in healthcare for goodness sakes. Needless to say, they get what they want... I can only afford one visit per year. Economic rationing.
nothing personal intended, new hires, it’s just a big intrusive gubamint / corporate thing.. both are run as businesses these days and have bottom lines. who would you rather have bleed you?
What about workers comp? Since it benefits employees, should the employees pay the premiums on that too?
Workmens Comp actually benefits employers...as they would be wiped out finacially if they did not have it
Also, the laws are much different for Workmens Comp. Employers have to carry it, but laws and legal precendents do protect businesses from a lot of liability.
Most employees do not realize that their "benefits" are actually considered by employers part of their compensation package and not "in addition to." So these are not benefits at all!
In my company, we call them "fringe benefits" and they comprise roughly 44% of the payroll. So an employee who gets a salary of $60,000 is actually considered on our P&L to have a salary of $86,400 as fringe benefits are added in for each employee.
Now most employees in that situation would probably rather be paid the $86,400 and obtain their own health care. Especially considering the fact that despite having a salary of just $60,000, that employee is still required to make some sort of co-payments to participate in the HMO/Dental/Insurance offerings. And even if the employee elects not to participate in the company's offerings, the salary still stays at the $60,000 as the company must still fund these benefits for the other employees.
And guess what Wally workers, Walmart will probably just pay the fines
so in the end you're worse off then before. Oh, and your work weeks are being
lowered to 32-hours a week. Happy Days! YAY OBAMA. WEEeeeeee
It does? I've heard countless times WC is killing employers and drove many out of biz.
Earlier this year those on our small group plan had the choice of A $2,500 deductible and premiums doubling to $800 a month on average for an individual, or a $10,000 deductible with premium only increasing to $400 a month. Most took the bizarrely high premium because there was just no way to make it work for $800 a month no matter what you cut. The only ones who went with the lower deductible had preexisting conditions or dependents who did.
If it gets much worse I’m going to be going in the hole every month just to live, no debt other than a mortgage, live pretty frugally. Forget savings of any kind with that sort of hit. Raise? What raise? Haven’t seen one of those in five years.
I’m better off than many of whom I’m aware, at least I have savings to dip into. Them, they’re looking at their own personal fiscal cliff. It’s not going to be pretty.
I’ve heard countless times WC is killing employers and drove many out of biz.
Then I got to thinking about when I took a trip to Germany I got an insurance policy that would have paid out about $500,000 for medical if I'd have needed it, costing me only slightly over $100.00.
Then I got to thinking how much would it cost to have travel insurance for a full year and it was only $1400. Something is wrong somewhere.
WHY have they been jacking up their rates? Government interferrence, that’s why. Get the darned government out of our medical insurance. I was reading here on FR recently about a clinic in OK that takes no insurance and does surgery for a fraction of the cost of typical hospitals. Let’s hope something like that catches on here in the US.
“”So, why is this health insurance any different? Your health, your responsibility. The employer involvement was gateway to communism”
What about workers comp? Since it benefits employees, should the employees pay the premiums on that too?”
Ultimately you have to remember in any labor agreement you(the employee) are selling your own services to anther person(called your employer).
That means in no uncertant terms you are agreeing to provide service A for good B. All theses extra “benefits” are contractional entanglements in which your employer(by force of the government or agreement) is exchanging part of your pay for anther good or service they or someone else manages on your behalf.
That is where things get messy and abusive because invariably you won’t always agree with the Goods & service provider chosen for you(by your employer or state). Nor will you at that point or really any point before have power to simply choose a different vender.
Workers compensation is no different from health or auto insurance in this regard. Although it may be said that your employer has some control over the safety in the workplace. The ultimate control was always yours in your refusal to do a job unsafely.
The point is Contracts are messy & expensive things, it is best to keep them as simple and tied to self-enforcing interest as possible.
The problem of course with many of theses services is the Government will tax you excessively if you choose to take direct control. If your employer pays you what he pays into health-insurance, your income will go up substanualy, thus raising your tax exposure substatualy. Whereas the Employer gets to deduct them benefits from taxes, if he retains control(over that service & you).
Economic under the tax code you are compelled to sit under your employers “good judgement” on how to manage your health expenses as a 3rd party. What Most people find surprising is just how incremental generous & flexible their employers have been under the circumstances.
You would not expect most employers to be so kind & understanding with their employees were they motivated as Obama consistently tries to paint them.
Last time I worked a minimum wage job, they did not offer insurance to anyone who wasn’t full time. When did that change?
It might have started as a way to compete, but it was a mind-shift where your healthcare is a responsibility of somebody else.
Welcome to ObamaCare where the doctors have all gone Galt. Don’t worry though, you’ll be able to see an SEIU “care giver” once she comes off of strike.
Employees do pay the premiums for workmans comp.
Just as they pay all of the fica...not just half.
It all comes out of what they earn..it’s just hidden to fool the foolish.
Actually, I have no interest whatsoever in other’s healthcare outside my family ~ if they die, they die. That’s life!
All roads lead to single payer. The idiots voted for Obama because they assume the rich will pay for everything when single payer comes in. But in the end, all of us will pay a high price for socialized medicine.
Socialized medicine is cruel and callous. Socialized medicine has poor recovery rates, low-paid bureaucrat doctors, long lines and filthy hospital rooms. Yet once socialized medicine takes over, it is impossible to get rid of because the mindless masses are afraid of the free market alternative.
I seem to remember there was a donation ($1,000,000 I think) made by a certain Wal-Mart family member to the Obama campaign. That money had to come from somewhere...
inherited
nobamacare = stay healthy or die.
Quiet?
Saw a lot of picketing and non-employee union comments on various networks prior to Christmas.
You had no insurance before you started working for WalMart, and you get to keep "no insurance".
Oh yeah?
Well Walmart is racist!
Obama wrote the bill...no point blaming a company for following the law. Plenty of Obama supporters are going to find out what working for 22 hours a week is like. Don’t worry Obama will just rewrite the law to read that if you work more than 15 minutes a day the Company has to provide you with “free” healthcare.
Yep, first expense from every pay-check won’t be a car or house when there’s a mandatory Democrat-Government-bureaucracy to fund.
“Workers’ Comp benefits EMPLOYERS, not employees. It saves employers from being sued by workers injured on the job. If you think WC is a “benefit” to the worker you don’t know much about the real world.”
I was forced to use Workers Comp one time years ago. I was a counselor at a college and stepped off a curb on college grounds to go to my car. I guess the heel of my boot turned and broke off because in an instant I was on the ground on my hands and knees and the heel of my boot was off. I stepped onto rocks and it must have been a rock that turned the heel and the force broke it off.
I had little gravel stuck in the palms of my hands and my right ankle was hurting and my knees had little gravel in them. I got in my car to go to an emergency room, but took that boot off as my ankle had started to swell.
Got to the emergency room, using my insurance card and the ankle was sprained, not broken and the gravel was taken out of my hands and knees. My right elbow was jammed due to landing mostly on it and it hurt. Doc said he couldn’t put me on crutches due to the damage of the palms of my hands. I limped home as couldn’t go back to work. Called the college office to tell them what happened and they had a fit. Told me I had to use workman’s comp. because it happened on that campus.
Ended up having to talk to workman’s comp person and the first sentence out of her mouth was, “Do you have a lawyer?” I said no, I don’t need a lawyer, I just fell and have to use you for the emergency bill. That woman wasn’t nice. It was like I was the enemy.
That’s my only experience with Workman’s Comp. I didn’t want to do that, but was forced to use them.
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