Posted on 10/08/2014 11:47:06 PM PDT by grundle
As the 800-pound gorilla of retailers, Wal-Mart made national headlines when it announced on Tuesday that it was cutting the health benefits for its 30,000 employees who work fewer than 30 hours a week.
A company blog post put the move down to rising healthcare costs, but the 30-hour cut-off gives a clue as to the real cause - President Barack Obama's healthcare reform.
Under the Affordable Care Act, large companies are required, starting this January, to provide subsidised healthcare for every employee who works 30-hours a week or more.
As the Atlantic's David A Graham notes, many of the law's critics said the result would be that large companies cut the hours worked by their employees to fewer than 30 a week. Instead what appears to be happening is that big retailers like Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot and Walgreens are simply doing away with the health benefits of their part-time workers entirely.
The editors of the conservative Investor's Business Daily are quick to assign blame, observing that Wal-Mart also announced it was raising the amount its full-time employees pay for their healthcare packages by 19% (an additional $3.50 (£2.18) a pay period, which still keeps their rates lower than the national average for retail employees).
The Wall Street Journal's editors, also a conservative lot, say Wal-Mart's decision to "jettison" its part-time workers onto the exchanges is a rational response to the healthcare law's incentives.
It wouldn't be surprising, writes Bloomberg View's Megan McArdle, if in a few years there were no companies offering healthcare to part-time employees.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Bingo. That's been the plan all along. Single payer, government run health care.
The transition is like death by a thousand cuts to the health care companies and to the consumers. But it will happen albeit with collateral damage.
Working 28 hours a week and can’t even afford ObamaCare that you are forced by law to buy
And my wife works for Sams Club, a part of WalMart, and the hours are so random, you can’t get a second job because there is not pattern by which to schedule.
“It wouldn’t be surprising, writes Bloomberg View’s Megan McArdle, if in a few years there were no companies offering healthcare to part-time employees.”
It wouldn’t be surprising if in a few years no companies were offering health insurance to ANY employees; ObamaCare has given them a scapegoat.
Also, in the interests of full disclosure, companies don’t offer healthcare; like ObamaCare, they offer health INSURANCE.
I don’t doubt it; I’ve been looking for a part-time job (already working full-time), and am shocked at how many of them want availability for all shifts. These are no longer designed to be extra income; they are designed to be somebody’s sole job. I don’t know students can do them either.
How in the world can anyone with sense expect them to be sole jobs? This economy does not support that. Eventually we’ll all have to live like some of the Mexicans....that is if we happen to actually HAVE family we can share board with.
With so many people out of work it is an employer’s market; if you need welfare/food stamps/housing subsidies then so be it.
In terms of living like Mexicans, that is exactly what the future has in store for us; for many it is already what the present holds for them. In my area the Mexicans pedal around to their under-the-table jobs on bicycles; I’ve long maintained that we will be reduced to the state of Red Chinese peasants, and that is exactly what is happening.
Our Peruvian Day parade is much larger than our St. Patrick’s Day parade; has been for years...
Perhaps. But, then there's always your neighbors to help pay for it with subsidies...
Not if they get it for nothing. Then your cost and mine will continue to climb until our companies see saving in paying the penalty rather than participate in a plan.
I love how this article points out the ideological bent of IBD and Wall Street in the first few words of each line. No similar reference is ever made to NY TIMES or WashPost
I don’t see why these people are whining about this issue. After all, most voted for Obama and his wonderful new society.
However, the rats came to eat the free cheese and are now caught by the trap that was waiting for them.
Then plan is to get businesses out from under the burden of health insurance costs while still guaranteeing profits for the health insurance industry.
The timing is of interest...... The announcement was pre election.
It is said to be one of several and the first of many.
Who will receive the wrath? The companies or those that voted for Obamacare?
additionally and most telling, Subsidized Obamacare with exorbitant deductibles is not really insurance anyway.
Young people <40 get no real needed coverage unless run over by a truck or bus.
That is interesting....... what you are saying is that to run up the hours from say two <30 hour part time jobs is difficult or impossible because scheduling is not really possible
Add to that companies will have next to no employees that work thirty hours or more. And the elite who still have full time jobs will give themselves excellent benefits.
In the future, will we have situations where full-time workers have two part-time jobs, and no insurance benefits? They'll be drained of any financial resources they have by "affordable" health insurance they'll be forced to purchase because of Obamacare. And WalMart's etc bottom line will do just fine.
Yeah that was my same thought for sure. But then what else would you expect from the BBC.
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