Posted on 10/08/2014 8:22:09 AM PDT by KeyLargo
Everyday Low Benefits Wal-Mart dumps 30,000 part-timers onto the ObamaCare exchanges.
Oct. 7, 2014 7:25 p.m. ET
Wal-Mart endorsed ObamaCare in 2009 and helped drag the bill through Congress, and so far it hasn’t recanted. By holding back economic growth and incomes, perhaps the law is expanding the retailer’s customer base. Another plus—at least for management—is that Wal-Mart can jettison its employees into the ObamaCare insurance exchanges.
The Associated Press reported Tuesday that the largest U.S. private employer is dropping health benefits for some 30,000 workers, or about 5% of its part-time workforce. Earlier health-plan eligibility triage in 2011 had removed tens of thousands of Wal-Mart workers from the balance sheet, so this latest purge was probably inevitable.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Wal-Mart Health Cuts Reopen Debate Over Obamacare Costs, Savings
More say O-Care has hurt families than helped
ObamaCare remains unpopular with more Americans saying that it has hurt rather than helped their families, according to a new poll.
More than a quarter of Americans, 27 percent, said ObamaCare has been harmful, while 16 percent said it has helped, a Gallup survey released Wednesday found.
The majority of Americans, 54 percent, said it has had no effect on them, down from around 70 percent the last two years. Slightly more Democrats than Republicans, 56 percent to 55 percent, said it has not affected them.
Only 4 percent of Republicans said the law has helped them, compared to 27 percent of Democrats. Similar percentages of Republicans, Democrats and independents said the law has had no effect.
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/220107-more-say-obamacare-has-hurt-families-than-helped
Wal-Mart will stop offering health care coverage for part-time employees in response to rising costs associated with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
According to a new Gallup poll, a majority of Americans say Obamacare “hurt them rather than helped them.”
At a fundraiser on Tuesday, President Barack Obama admitted, “There’s a sense possibly that the world is spinning so fast and nobody is able to control it.”
http://reason.com/blog/2014/10/08/am-links-obamacare-ebola-fbi-spying
Sam Walton, a Christian, is probably rolling over in his grave at this announcement.
Well after all, most of them voted for it.
The joke will be on Walmart when the regime responds by slapping a $15 minimum wage on them so that people can pay their premiums.
Yes. 
“The joke will be on Walmart when the regime responds by slapping a $15 minimum wage on them so that people can pay their premiums.”
Yes, and the few taxpayers left will foot the bill.
Arkansas Blog
How low-wage Walmart workers may benefit from company no longer offering insurance to part-timers
Posted By David Ramsey on Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 5:29 PM
Just a quick addendum to Leslie’s post on Walmart ending health insurance benefits to part-time workers.
In many cases, low-wage workers may actually be better off because of Walmart dropping health insurance coverage. That’s because they can only get subsidies to buy Obamacare plans if they don’t get offered employer-sponsored insurance. Lower-income people get more generous subsidies, so in many cases, workers will get better deals — sometimes dramatically so — via Obamacare plans as opposed to the Walmart-offered plans. Sarah Kliff over at Vox explains the details.
Meanwhile, economists have generally found that benefits come out of wages, and reducing benefits leads to higher wages. So a low-wage worker might be able to get cheaper insurance via Obamacare subsidies AND potentially see moderately higher wages as a result. Will Walmart actually raise wages? We’ll see, but in the long term, in the Obamacare world, low-wage workers are almost certainly going to be better off without employer-sponsored health insurance, with higher wages and subsidized health insurance on the Obamacare marketplaces. (Note: none of this changes the fact that Walmart’s maneuvering on all of this looks pretty squirrelly).
The loser in the Walmart scenario is the federal taxpayer, picking up the tab instead of Walmart. Still, for anyone who would like to see health insurance decoupled from the workplace, this is an example of how Obamacare may inch us in that direction. I’d also argue that this is an example of why the oft-delayed employer mandate doesn’t really make sense. In practice, by requiring large employers to offer health insurance or face a penalty, it would lock in many lower-income workers to employer-sponsored insurance that isn’t the best deal for them, and would potentially depress their wages. Yes, it saves the federal government some money, but it’s also politically toxic and props up an employer-sponsored health insurance regime that drives up health care costs overall.
There’s one exception to this happy story for low-wage workers at Walmart: for those below the poverty line in states which refused Medicaid expansion, they’ll fall in to the coverage gap and be left with no options. Many part-time Walmart workers will be above the line, but some will not. Many of these folks may not have been able to afford the Walmart insurance to begin with, so this won’t change anything — in refusnik states, many of the poor simply have no options for affordable health insurance. Fortunately Arkansas expanded coverage via the private option.
The Liberals argue that since Wal-Mart makes so much money they could still give health benefits to their employees, and their decision to discontinue it is nothing more than corporate greed.
Sometimes cheap stuff is not so cheap.
I heard that Wal-Mart is going to start adding Health Ins. Services and Clinics to their stores, coincidence?. Then again if the half billion dollar increase in medical Ins. that Wal-Mart claims they will be paying is accurate, can you blame them?
I heard that Wal-Mart is going to start adding Health Ins. Services and Clinics to their stores, coincidence?
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Remember they were referred to as “Wally World” long before they started banking services etc.
You already could go in and buy eye glasses and get an exam, fill prescriptions, some have a sort of walk in clinic, some have a full service bank (guess on the way out), buy groceries, buy clothing, furniture, appliances, garden shop, sporting goods, weapons and ammo(well) etc etc etc.
If they start selling cars and have full size restaurants plus all the different insurances, it definitely will become a ONE STOP FITS ALL experience.
You KNEW that this was coming. Bozo planned it this way.
Well, yeah, they planned for this to happen - they also planned to demonize those businesses that did so.
Look for them to blame the businesses when Obolacare collapses.
“If they hadn’t dumped all their employees into the system, it wouldn’t have crashed.”
My local Walmart service is terrible.
So many people are willing to stand in line to buy stuff a few % cheaper than regular stores.
Not me.
And by that same Walmarts store opening a grocery food-wing a grocery store about a 1/2 mile away went out of business about two years later.
Walmarts is definitely not for me.
But if they could close enough other stores and build a super monopoly then it wouldnt matter if they had 2 hour lines to checkout.
Sometimes cheap stuff is not so cheap.
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Like P J O’Rourke (supposedly) quipped....
We will never know how expensive health care is until it is FREE.
The more free stuff ‘THEY’ get, the more it costs ‘US’.
An Applebees in Wal-Mart would be quite nice.
So, Obamacare is a bad thing now? and isn’t ObamaCare mandatory?
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