if he made the claim, let HIM prove it's true...
Posted on 12/26/2013 6:03:04 PM PST by BillyBonebrake
During our family gathering yesterday my father-in-law (who is an labor arbitrator in a blue state) told me employers of 50+ full timers have always been required to offer health insurance. He essentially said the ACA's employer mandate is nothing new. I was flabbergasted and told him I thought he was wrong. He got HOT quick. So I dropped it. But its something I would like to verify and haven't been able to find anything.
The subject is a big one for me because my 35-40 hours a week as a part time EMT will soon be cut down to 25/week. Which will turn my life into a mad scramble trying to line up work with different agencies.
I should also point out that this is a man who talks the talk as if he's a conservative. But just around me. I've also heard him bashing the "tea party extremists" to my rabidly leftist in-laws. My gut is he's trying to play me so he can nail me in discussions like the one we had yesterday.
I will gladly admit too him I was mistaken. But not before checking with fellow freepers. Heh heh.
I will try to find resources you can quote — but in the meantime I am quite certain that there is NO requirement of any kind for employers to offer health insurance. As I recall reading it a while back, big employers started to offer health insurance as additional perks to attract the best employees and as some offered it, more and more did, to stay competitive.
Also they had a choice of how much and what type of health insurance to offer. With Obamacare it’s “one size fits all” which is so expensive, that in many cases it is prohibitively expensive for the employers, eats up their profits so they will end up going out of business, because a business has to turn a profit to continue to exist - something Obama and the Dems don’t want to understand.
The information was out 2 years earlier. Big businesses could see it coming before it was passed. They had the inside info on what constituted a “Cadillac Plan” in which it was deemed “too good” and therefore the business (and employee would be taxed extra) punished through taxation. They had the guidelines for what to offer and what not to. In that respect he was correct but they had no directive to do anything about it until legislation was passed. Some businesses were pro-active and some were not.
Today, it's governed by "whatever Obama says".
Re-reading your post, I know of no mandate requiring employer paid insurance. But they knew of upcoming changes in the law.
Part-time max hours were 29 at The Home Depot this year. Anyone PTer averaging over was knocked down accordingly late in the year to bring the average down below 29.
FUBO - TOTALITARIANCARE
FUCONgress
FUUSSC
Related, good to know — but not quite what you were asking:
there are major impacts on large companies offering health insurance (it says video, but there is transcript text to read — I personally like text, it’s quicker to scan for content) :
ACA Provisions 2014: Impacts To Large Groups
http://www.aetna.com/health-reform-connection/reform-explained/video-LGimpact.html
See also:
http://www.sba.gov/content/employers-with-50-or-more-employees
As far as I can tell so far obamacare is extremely burdensome on ALL businesses, large and small and it all cuts into their profits — impacting their ability to stay in business, no business, no employees, no jobs, people become unemployed and so on...
Never heard of it. Don’t go on the defensive. Just smile and ask him for further information.
You are correct, although the vast majority of companies offered a health insurance package of some type as a way to keep the employee happy. Often the company paid a set percentage of the total premium. For me it was 50% where I worked a few years ago. Also it was not mandatory to take the package, if for example, your spouse had a better family benefits package at another company.
According to this, the PROBLEM is that it is making employers of low-skilled, low-wage earning employees offer health insurance to those on the bottom rungs as well. We’re talking HIGH SCHOOL & COLLEGE KIDS and the losers that aren’t smart or motivated enough to IMPROVE their lot in life.
That now makes your affordable burger-flipper unaffordable. ($8 an hour, bumped up to $13 hour to add in insurance.)
I know a good divorce lawyer if you need one, LOL!
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-25/obamacare-means-employers-must-offer-coverage-sooner
According to the facists at healthcare.gov they don’t currently have to: https://www.healthcare.gov/do-i-have-to-offer-health-coverage-to-my-employees/
“No employer has to offer coverage. Some large businesses that don’t offer coverage meeting certain standards may have to make a shared responsibility payment in 2015.”
“. I heard Washington delayed the requirement for large employers to offer health insurance. How is that affecting coverage?
A. The delay is for one year, and most employers already offer coverage....”
Clearly if there already were a requirement to offer health insurance, they wouldn’t be quoting it as delaying the req. as part of the ACA.
Here you go. From 2007. Look at Figure 2 comparing % insured at large and small businesses.
if he made the claim, let HIM prove it's true...
maybe not the most authoritative source, but Wikipedia has some info, that I think it’s correct:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_in_the_United_States
The rise of employer-sponsored coverage[edit]
Employer-sponsored health insurance plans dramatically expanded as a direct result of wage controls imposed by the federal government during World War II.[19] The labor market was tight because of the increased demand for goods and decreased supply of workers during the war. Federally imposed wage and price controls prohibited manufacturers and other employers from raising wages enough to attract workers. When the War Labor Board declared that fringe benefits, such as sick leave and health insurance, did not count as wages for the purpose of wage controls, employers responded with significantly increased offers of fringe benefits, especially health care coverage, to attract workers.[19]
President Harry S. Truman proposed a system of public health insurance in his November 19, 1945, address. He envisioned a national system that would be open to all Americans, but would remain optional. Participants would pay monthly fees into the plan, which would cover the cost of any and all medical expenses that arose in a time of need. The government would pay for the cost of services rendered by any doctor who chose to join the program. In addition, the insurance plan would give a cash balance to the policy holder to replace wages lost due to illness or injury. The proposal was quite popular with the public, but it was fiercely opposed by the Chamber of Commerce, the American Hospital Association, and the AMA, which denounced it as “socialism.”[23]
Foreseeing a long and costly political battle, many labor unions chose to campaign for employer-sponsored coverage, which they saw as a less desirable but more achievable goal, and as coverage expanded the national insurance system lost political momentum and ultimately failed to pass. Between 1940 and 1960, the total number of people enrolled in health insurance plans grew seven-fold, from 20,662,000 to 142,334,000,[24] and by 1958, 75% of Americans had some form of health coverage.[25]
Employers were required to carry unemployment, and workers comp insurance. 6 states required employers to carry disability. I'm not sure any required health coverage.
There were federal regs that applied to group health plans that mandated cobra coverage be available to employees that lost their jobs that were under one of these group health plans. That wasn't paid by the employer though, the full cost of the insurance was paid by the employee. But that didn't mean the employer had to offer the group health plan in the first place. Most did to compete for labor. Now that we've off-shored so many of our jobs, it's not as important to compete and employers are cutting back on offering health insurance.
There was nothing before ObamaCare. The world did not exist before ObamaCare. Obamacare is the Alpha and the Omega. The fact is that your answer questions this means you need to be re-educated.
Thank you, Kirkwood. And to your earlier reply: I worked for Fortune 500 companies back when we had a viable job market and a dynamic economy. There were always healthcare options offered due to the competition for good employees. One even said “we’re giving you X dollars for any of these plans and if with the bare bones option you can pocket the difference”. Ahhh .... those were the days.
Healthcare insurance was governed by STATE law, so each State could establish different requirements, for employers. Hawaii requires employers provide health insurance for all employees, no matter how big the company is. Needless to say, Hawaii has the highest health insurance premiums in the country.
The Federal income tax was a way for the Democrats to steal a piece of the working man’s wages. The penalties associated with Obamacare show that Obamacare is just a way for the Democrats to steal a piece of the working man’s/woman’s benefits.
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