Posted on 09/07/2013 7:49:24 AM PDT by lowbridge
International Business Machines Corp. plans to move about 110,000 retirees off its company-sponsored health plan and instead give them a payment to buy coverage on a health-insurance exchange, in a sign that even big, well-capitalized employers aren't likely to keep providing the once-common benefits as medical costs continue to rise.
The move, which will affect all IBM retirees once they become eligible for Medicare, will relieve the technology company of the responsibility of managing retirement health-care benefits. IBM said the growing cost of care makes its current plan unsustainable without big premium increases.
IBM's shift is an indication that health-insurance marketplaces, similar to the public exchanges proposed under President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul, will play a bigger role as companies move coverage down the path taken by many pensions, paying employees and retirees a fixed sum to manage their own care.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Medicare Advantage is being slowly eliminated. How do you supplement Medicare Advantage?
Did you know that some .gov retirees only make 25-30 dollars an hour at 58 years old, for walking out to the mailbox twice a month?
FOR SHAME, .gov haters!!!
They have to pass it to see what's in it - for the peasants.
Our Owners in CONgress - not so much.
I should have been more clear - it is Medicare Advantage or Medicare Supplement. The original Wall Street Journal Article is better than the Fox News summary, but you have to access it through Google to avoid the paywall. Just Google IBM Medicare and it should show up.
Think logically about what you are saying. Are you saying that YOU are the one whom should set the price for a drug company’s research efforts, or for a physician’s treatment? Any proposal to mandate “affordable” healthcare necessarily entails theft of the MD’s time at gunpoint.
Are you listening 65+ers? Obama wants your SS and your death tax, and by golly he’ll squeeze it out of you if he has to!
I never said mandate. But too many assume medicine can be modeled completely on free markets. Free market works if the consumer has the option of not buying the product if the prices are too high. A drug that keeps you alive doesn’t fit that model. You simply cannot say no and die.
Ya know what? There is no “moral” obligation to provide healthcare. People don’t do things for free. There’s always the profit motivation. If there isn’t, then, it’s always some a$$hole deciding what’s “fair”. The market should decide, rather than some commie apparatchik (and, ultimately, whomever thinks they’re the ones to decide, are commie apparatchiks).
It’s not immoral to die. It’s immoral to steal and force people to hand over resources (work/money/time) for someone else’s concept of “fairness” and “morality”.
My Father is on Medicare and has Secure Horizons as his Supplemental Carrier. He pays no monthly Premium for it.
So you support obamacare. Got it.
Your father pays for Medicare, I’ll bet.
Ok, I die without food. How is food any different? Do you want the government to control food?
Utter and complete bullpucky. My dad was a physician who regularly gave his services away to the poor and those who could not pay. But he wasn’t going to do that for every low life who thought they deserved a free ride. That sounds like what you want. I don’t think any advocate of a healthcare system where the doctor and patient have a relationship oppose catastrophic coverage. But don’t for a minute sit there and expect the same health coverage as someone who is willing to any more. You will get what you need, nothing more, if you’re not willing to pay for something.
No, I don't. Get that straight.
If you find that you have to rely on some kind of medical procedure or pharmaceutical product to stay alive and healthy, and you don't have the financial means to pay for these products or services yourself, then you really are at the mercy of those who make those products or perform those services.
While it might seem harsh to apply basic principles of economics to matters of life and death, there's no getting around the fact that these principles apply even in these cases -- perhaps especially in these cases.
I couldn't invent a life-saving drug if you gave me 50 years and unlimited financial resources to work on it, so there's no way in hell I'm going to dictate financial terms to someone else who can do it.
That he does. Of course it’s just a deduction from his Social Security, but nobody seems to notice.
Kind of like Tax Withholding when people think they aren’t paying Taxes because they get a Refund.
When they want the labor (and I worked for a competitor of IBM) and they want to lay you off then relocate you to the third world to pay you less than half of your old salary, I’d say they are cooking the books.
Gates and others lied to Congress when they said they needed more foreign workers (and the ability to import billions of dollars of compiled/manufactured code without paying any import duty) because there was insufficient talent here.
Last I knew, the Orwellian pigs at the top of the companies were profiteering off of their false meme.
I am not saying there should be a mandatory salary. They are saying there aren’t the people who can do it here then they are trying to ship people OVER THERE to do the work.
Lies. Damn lies.
I agree with you that there is shady (my words) stuff going on. For example, IBM had massive layoffs in the developed countries (U.S., Australia, Canada, Italy, etc.) in June/July — only to turn around and rehire many as contractors. I can understand periodic cuts to get rid of “dead wood,” but at this point, there is almost no one left to even set up employee laptops, much less sell them ...
Also, the entire hardware division (STG) was furloughed for a week (last week and others, the week before). They did get 1/3 of their pay, I believe. Only one person/friend I know got to stay and skip the furlough (he takes angry customer calls). Everyone else was told to stay home and they were banned from checking their laptops. Of course when they got back, they were in trouble for not responding to management emails. (The same managers who furloughed them.)
Seems shaky to me, unfortunately.
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