Can you tell this article was written by a leftie? Pretty obvious. To the idiot author of this article, Bozo is the reason for this sh**, not Walmart.
They get what they voted for.
So what is new at Walmart?
John Roberts says Obamacare is a tax.
And it is a truism that if you tax something you get less of it.
In this case what you will inevitably get less of is health care and full time jobs that pay a living wage.
The cost of a product, say, a shirt, is the expense of the shirt, plus overhead times profit. If the shirt costs $2.00 and the apportioned cost of the overhead (lights, rent) is $2.00 and the profit is 10% then the shirt costs $2.00+$2.00=$4.00. Multiply the total by profit $4.00*1.1= $4.40.
My former employer spent $6,500 per employee per year on medical. I spent another $3,500 for individual coverage. $10,000/year per employee. (BTW, the HR guy told me that the plan was to dump everybody; 30,000 employees, onto the Obamacare and just pay the fine come 2014.)
Back to Wal-Mart. Let’s say the average employee makes $12.50/hr and works 2,080 hours per year. He’s making $12.50 * 2,080 or $26,000. Adding $10,000 on top of that is a $10,000/$26,000 or a 38% raise. Wal-Mart employs 2.1 million people. Assuming they all make $26,000 that’s 2,100,000 * 26,000 or $54,600,000,000/year. Multiply that by 1.38 and you get $75,348,000,000. And, remember, we only used take-home pay. If you add in Wal-Mart’s social security, etc. then the cost to Wal-Mart is even more significant.
Now, back to the shirt. Because the cost of medical care was increasing exponentially when private companies did the work imagine how inefficient the government will be at controlling costs. (Every plane, tank and dam the government bought went wildly over budget.) The shirt could go from $4.40 to $8.80 in no time. Since the nation’s poorest people shop at Wal-Mart (The average Wal-Mart shopper’s income is $25,000; compared to Target’s average shopper income of $75,000.) Wal-Mart covering medical care would be a TAX on the poorest Americans. Whereas if Wal-Mart “dumps” their employees on the taxpayers then the medical costs will be picked up by those evil (/s) rich people.
New tagline ...
WalMart and other LARGE employers are just the tip of the iceberg. The sector that this is likely to become a near-universal practice is in the restaurant industry. The Federal minimum wage for tipped employees is still $2.13 per hour (plus tips, of course). But anyone who stayed awake during grade school arithmetic class can tell that an employer can't possibly afford to provide free health insurance in addition to $2.13/hour wages.
The more obvious results; 1.) restaurant employees will see their hours cut by more than one-quarter AND 2.) The employees will be on the hook for paying for their own overpriced Obamacare insurance. Or be fined. Or "taxed" as the SC decided. It's regressive taxation, but that's not news since so far most of the pain of Obamanomics has been directed at the core Obama voter constituencies.
I've considered the possibility that this was deliberate -- except for Nancy Pelosi's famous quote "But we have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy." NOBODY knew what was in the bill. So no, it's not a nefarious plot, IMO. It's that liberals are idiots. Which is not news.
The American people are going to get the government they want, good and hard.
Sounds like a sound business decision for Walmart.
their fine will be less than if they supplied insurance, plus it will cut down on their HR involvement and other management involvement.
and for zer0bummer? it is what the turd actually wants.
all around it is Marxism...no getting around it.
That's known as a failure in the gov't and lefties eyes. The question is can Walmart make it work with the FAILURE Obamacare is going to be?
God bless Wal-Mart
That’s a relief. I know the Walton family is working hard to stretch their dollars. Times are tough.
Well, “we have to pass the bill so you can see what is in it” worked out just fine, didn’t it?
This just looks like Walmart found out “what is in it” and didn’t like it.
Gee, never saw THAT coming. *sarcasm*
“Walmart Bails On Obamacare-Sticks Taxpayers With Employee Healthcare Costs”
We were told by many advocates of ObamaCare (tm) that should an employer not be willing to pay for the employees health insurance premium that the employee could fall back on government. This was a cynical observation because the plan all along was to squeeze both private employers and health insurers into a government-run single-payer system. So, I take it as a pejorative that this headline uses the worlds “bails” and “sticks”.
In truth, when an employer pays all or part of an employees health insurance premium, it is just another form of wage. It is just that the employee doesn’t receive it directly. The employee ALWAYS paid for his own premiums, he just never was allowed to decide where it was spent for him. Now his premium will be socialized and made part of the tax base.
Employees will think they are getting it paid by government, but they are now trading their priceless liberty for “free” health care. And because of how it distorts the economics of health care even more, it will quickly not be free in terms of money. Government never improves the efficiency of a privately run system. Should that ever happen, it is an unnatural act for government, and it is unsustainable.
What will employees of Walmart do in States that have “ refused to set up exchanges”? Or does this matter? I still haven’t “found out what’s in it”.
What will employees of Walmart do in States that have “ refused to set up exchanges”? Or does this matter? I still haven’t “found out what’s in it”.
Who knows all the details of the Obamacare fiasco, but I believe at some point the lower wage earners whose employers don’t furnish medical insurance will qualify for Medicaid.
Lots of chain reactions will be set in motion as Obamacare is implemented, and many will be surprised.
Many Walmart employees qualify for and get FOOD STAMPS.
In other words, the government is subsidizing Walmart.
Watch for the next steps:
1. Regime blames businesses for reducing employee work week to avoid ‘providing’ ObamaCare.
2. MSM writes articles calling capitalism a ‘failure’.
3. Regime calls for new law requiring companies to provide ObamaCare. Calls companies ‘greedy’. Calls for new tax.
The headline alone is enough to make a man puke. Employees stuck with paying for their own healthcare, how awful think the lefties. Imagine someone being responsible for their own health. Communists are all insane.