Posted on 12/10/2012 3:03:18 AM PST by lowbridge
After making a big deal of publicly supporting the Affordable Care Act, Walmart—the nation’s largest private sector employer—is joining the ranks of companies seeking to avoid their obligation to provide employees with health insurance as required by Obamacare.
It was not all that many years ago that Walmart announced, in response to harsh criticism over the low pay provided to Walmart ‘associates’, that the company would provide a healthcare benefit to its part-time, low earning employees. The uncharacteristically generous nod to worker needs was short lived as the company partially pulled back on the commitment in 2011, citing premium rate increases that Walmart deemed beyond their capacity to pay.
Now, Huffington Post is reporting that the party is over for many more existing Walmart employees, along with all employees hired after February 1, 2012 that the company can classify as “part-time.”
According to the 2013 Walmart “Associate’s Benefit Book”—the manual for low-level Walmart employees—part-time workers who got their jobs during or after 2011 will now be subject to an “Annual Benefits Eligibility Check” each August.
Employees hired after Feb. 1, 2012, who fail to average the magic 30-hours per week requiring a company to provide a healthcare benefit, will lose their healthcare benefits on the following January. Part-time workers hired after Jan. 15, 2011, but before Feb. 1, 2012, will be able to hang onto their Walmart health care benefit if they work at least 24 hours a week.
Anyone hired before 2011 will not be cut off from the company provided health insurance.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
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*
So then, it would be cheaper for WalMart to just pay the fine.
Seeing you break it down that way makes sense.
My question now is maybe this is the kind of thing Justice Roberts had in mind by declaring ACA to be a “tax”?
In other words, let the free market forces play out and become the very thing that kills Obamacare.
What say you ?
“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.
They will have to figure out how to work a second part time job to make up for those lost original wal-mart work hours and and earn enough to pay their Federal Obama IRS fine for not having enough $ to pay thier own health insurance. A nice vicious circle, isn’t it? Mmmmmmmm, Mmmmm, Mmmmmm.
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”.
“In other words, let the free market forces play out and become the very thing that kills Obamacare. What say you ?”
Like many I was disappointed by the Roberts’ decision. But he had a lot of things to balance. If he had ruled the other way then the massive weight of the MSM would have portrayed the court as hopelessly right-wing and an “enemy of the people.” Also, a contrary decision might have actually strengthened Obama’s political position. Roberts gambled that his favorable decision would energize the electorate to defeat Obama and thus Obamacare and that deciding it was a tax could bring it down under other constitutional considerations. Taxes must be started in the House and this bill was started in the Senate; so it’s a do-over. (But since the Constitution is a “living document” its rules mean less and less.)
We haven’t seen how Roberts’ gamble will play out. But the longer Obamacare goes on the more entrenched it gets. Once it starts actually paying out and develops its own constituency (people who use it) in 2014 then the odds of getting rid of it drop. Also, conservatism (Constitutionalism) appears to be on the decline. Romney, for example, would have been a Democrat in any other decade but this one.
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.
They knew, make no mistake about that. They crafted the bloody thing. The Dems also crafted the bloody regulations of healthcare to purposely drive costs through the roof to create the argument that private healthcare is impossible to sustain.
Can’t blame the Waltons, they are only,responding in a rationale manner. It’s the government that has driven the costs of having an employee through the roof, and not just on healthcare.
When you have millions of people looking for a second gig, good luck with that. There are going to be millions of people whose only job will be the 28 hour/week job.
Thank you for your reply. When all of these other companies do this, we applaud them for sticking it to “the man.” But when Walmart does this, evil Walmart. BS. Too many FReepers are media puppets.
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.
Walmart is not the problem there; foodstamps are. The federal gov’t should collect taxes only to support the “common” good. National defense, border security, interstate commerce are a few examples that come to mind. Charity for individuals does not serve the common good of the entire nation. Why should someone in North Dakota have to buy food for someone in Detroit? Why should workers in North Carolina send checks to people in Iowa who don’t work?
Childless couples in New Mexico should not be forced to provide school lunches for kids in Georgia.
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.
The feds will run an exchange for people who live in states that don't. But here's the kicker -- the ACA provides a subsidy to state-run exchanges to keep costs down, but prohibits a subsidy to any federal exchange.
That’s the trick of government. You think they’re “giving” you something over here, but you’re paying for all the stuff they’re “giving” over there.
It would be a lot cheaper for everyone just to pay for their own stuff, for two reasons:
1) Government makes it cost more (overhead, fraud, cronyism, inefficiency etc.)
2) Money gets spent that would not necessarily be spent. If you think you’re going to get a new school (e.g.), but don’t really need one, you’ll take it anyway. What you don’t see are the unneeded schools being built all over the place, that everyone thinks they’re “getting”.
People who make excuses for Roberts give me a pain. Why wouldn’t it have been easier and faster just to follow the constitution and declare Bozocare unconstitutional, which it is, regardless of what Roberts said at the time.
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