Is anyone noticing differences with their employers because of Obamacare?

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**daedalus**

Kanluwen wrote:
daedalus wrote:
Yeah, I've never really been worried about massive internationally known corporations having a hard time dealing with ACA. They can weather it.

...of course, I wouldn't be upset if Starbucks or Walmart disappeared tomorrow, but that's a different conversation.

I'm really worried about Small Time Mom and Pop, Inc.

If you want to be fair though most "small time Mom and Pop, Inc." agencies have primarily family employees working for them anyways and their children are most likely covered under their own health insurance anyways.

I was thinking about specific places I go, and it's occurred to me that a lot of those places are likely already part time employees. I wonder if the waitresses at Uncle Bill's Pancake House would look at me weird if I asked them how many of them were full-time.

**Easy E**

Perhaps the Part-time society isn't that bad in the long run. It is the getting there that will suck.

One part of the Jetson's that has really resonated with me lately is that George only worked a 3 day week. By doing this, you still need people to work the other 4 days, even if all you do is push a button; ala George jetson. That essentially means that more people have jobs.

Of course, in the short run that is very bad. However, over time the economy will respond and the Cost of Living will respond to the demand. Instead of everyone needing to live in dual income households to be realtively stable, the market will adjust to dual part-time incomes.

However, like I said it would be a very difficult, painful transition to make.

**Frazzled**

Ouze wrote:
Sounds like it's not hurting the US's second biggest employer too bad, as they're expanding their health coverage.

Wal-Mart offers health benefits to U.S. workers' domestic partners
By Jessica Wohl
Tue Aug 27, 2013 2:26pm EDT

(Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc said on Tuesday it will offer health insurance benefits to domestic partners of its U.S. employees starting next year, following the lead of other major companies.

The world's largest retailer, based in Bentonville, Arkansas, also plans to begin to offer vision care to its eligible employees and their dependents, according to information the retailer sent to workers this week.

Wal-Mart is the single biggest U.S. employer outside of the federal government. More than half of its 1.3 million U.S. employees are on its health-care plans. The company said it does not know how many workers would use the new benefits, which also include free hip and knee joint replacements.

Wal-Mart's extension of health insurance to domestic partners comes after the U.S. Supreme Court in June forced the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages in states where it is legal. The Supreme Court also paved the way for same-sex marriage in California.

"Since we operate in all 50 states, we thought it was important to develop a single definition for all Wal-Mart associates in the U.S.," spokesman David Tovar said.

Wal-Mart is behind many other large companies on domestic partner coverage. Sixty-two percent of the Fortune 500 already offer health benefits for domestic partners, according to the Human Rights Campaign's 2013 Corporate Equality Index.

Employees' domestic partners can be covered if they are legal spouses, not legally separated; or a domestic partner of same or opposite gender in an ongoing, exclusive relationship similar to marriage for at least 12 months with the intention to continue sharing a household indefinitely, Tovar said.

DOMESTIC PARTNERS

Wal-Mart confirmed some details of its 2014 annual enrollment to Reuters ahead of the sign-up period, which runs from October 12 to November 1. The company outlined changes to its plans on a postcard mailed to employees this week.

The 2010 U.S. Affordable Care Act will require large employers to offer coverage to certain part-time workers beginning in January but Wal-Mart said it had anticipated the change and did not need to further adjust its plans.

The law's goals include broadening insurance coverage and it requires companies with more than 50 employees to offer health insurance for employees who work 30 hours a week or more.

About 1.1 million people, including workers' family members, are currently covered by Wal-Mart health-care plans in the United States. Not all of the company's U.S. employees sign up for coverage. Part-time employees must work for Wal-Mart for one year and work an average of 30 hours a week to qualify.

Last week, United Parcel Service Inc told non-union employees that their spouses would no longer qualify for company-sponsored health insurance if they could get coverage through their own jobs.

Starbucks Corp Chief Executive Howard Schultz said on Monday that his company, which provides healthcare to employees who 20 hours a week or more, would not cut health benefits or reduce hours for employees in anticipation of the U.S. Affordable Care Act.

MAIN PLAN TO COST WORKERS 5.7 PERCENT MORE

Wal-Mart's U.S. employees are set to pay 3 percent to 10 percent more for their medical coverage next year, depending on the plan chosen.

The lowest-priced and most popular plan for a Wal-Mart employee is set to cost $18.40 per bi-weekly pay period next year, up 5.7 percent from $17.40 this year, the company said.

Full plan details were not available. The company plans to send tailored guides to its U.S. employees the week of October 8.

Annual U.S. health insurance premiums rose an average of 5 percent for individuals and 4 percent for families in 2013, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation's 2013 Employer Health Benefits Survey released on August 20.

This year, Wal-Mart began to offer U.S. employees and their dependents free heart and spine surgeries at six major health centers. Next year, it plans to also fully cover hip and knee joint replacements at certain hospitals.

A large majority of Wal-Mart's workers who sign up for medical coverage also sign up for dental coverage. Wal-Mart said it would start to offer vision coverage in 2014 after employees asked for it.

"There's no one size fits all solution for people's benefits, so we're trying to offer a number of benefit options and then let associates make choices on what's best for them," said Tovar.

Dental and vision coverage are offered for additional fees, which for an individual are about $7 and $2 per bi-weekly pay period, respectively.

Wal-Mart's benefits administrators are Aetna Inc, UnitedHealth Group Inc's UnitedHealthcare and Blue Cross Blue Shield, depending on the location of a particular worker.

(Reporting by Jessica Wohl in Chicago; Editing by Leslie Adler)

source

As 99% of their workforce is part time already they don't provide any to begin with.
When I worked at SAMs, they had about seven full time people and 300 part timers. If you went over mandated part time, you were fired.

Target was only slightly different.

**Ouze**

Frazzled wrote:
As 99% of their workforce is part time already

citation needed

If you want to take this opportunity to retract that figure your provided from The Department of Made-Up Statistics, feel free.

**Frazzled**

Ouze wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
As 99% of their workforce is part time already

citation needed

If you want to take this opportunity to retract that figure your provided from The Department of Made-Up Statistics, feel free.

I worked there.

your cite.

**Ouze**

Frazzled wrote:
Ouze wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
As 99% of their workforce is part time already

citation needed

If you want to take this opportunity to retract that figure your provided from The Department of Made-Up Statistics, feel free.

I worked there. your cite.

Remember, boys and girls - this is why you should never, ever try to discuss anything of substance with Frazzled. He will make up nonsense, and when called on it, just shrug.

On the topic, here is another article with better info; including but not limited to:

More than half of Walmart’s workforce is eligible for these new benefits, per their spokesperson. “The majority of our associates are full-time,” Hargrove said. “We have not provided a specific percentage of full versus part-time, or percentage of associates that sign up for our health care plan benefits.”

He added: “We have 1.3 million associates in the U.S. and more than half have elected coverage. More than 1.1 million associates and family members are covered by Walmart health care plans.”

Most estimates show part time employees make up about a third of Wal-marts workforce.

**Psienesis**

Hargrove is being very misleading in his statements, as one-third of Wal-Mart's employees are part-time, and most of their workers with families are living below the poverty line, up to 70% below. Up to 80% of their work-force is on public assistance. Walmart also does not provide any benefits to someone who works under 24 hours a week, though they consider "full time" to be 34+ hpw.

http://www.pbs.org/itvs/storewars/stores3.html
http://makingchangeatwalmart.org/walmart-and-workers/

**Frazzled**

Ouze wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
Ouze wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
As 99% of their workforce is part time already

citation needed

If you want to take this opportunity to retract that figure your provided from The Department of Made-Up Statistics, feel free.

I worked there. your cite.

Remember, boys and girls - this is why you should never, ever try to discuss anything of substance with Frazzled. He will make up nonsense, and when called on it, just shrug.

On the topic, here is another article with better info; including but not limited to:

More than half of Walmart’s workforce is eligible for these new benefits, per their spokesperson. “The majority of our associates are full-time,” Hargrove said. “We have not provided a specific percentage of full versus part-time, or percentage of associates that sign up for our health care plan benefits.”

He added: “We have 1.3 million associates in the U.S. and more than half have elected coverage. More than 1.1 million associates and family members are covered by Walmart health care plans.”

Most estimates show part time employees make up about a third of Wal-marts workforce.

being as I had access to who did what, yea it definitely trumps whatever cite you're going to use. It would be interesting to find a "cite" of an actual store's employees - I'd smell a lawsuit with that one as its confidential info.

**SilverMK2**

whembly wrote:
Now that is a good case study... but, they have one thing going for them.

They're a business that's extremely popular and folks will pay the premium for their morning coffee.

I'd be interested to see how they're doing in two years.

Depends if they keep up with the the second thing going for them: Shifting around their money so they don't pay any tax.

**whembly**

SilverMK2 wrote:
whembly wrote:
Now that is a good case study... but, they have one thing going for them.

They're a business that's extremely popular and folks will pay the premium for their morning coffee.

I'd be interested to see how they're doing in two years.

Depends if they keep up with the the second thing going for them: Shifting around their money so they don't pay any tax.

Well... how's that any different from any large corporations?

**SilverMK2**

whembly wrote:
SilverMK2 wrote:
whembly wrote:
Now that is a good case study... but, they have one thing going for them.

They're a business that's extremely popular and folks will pay the premium for their morning coffee.

I'd be interested to see how they're doing in two years.

Depends if they keep up with the the second thing going for them: Shifting around their money so they don't pay any tax.

Well... how's that any different from any large corporations?

Other large corporations also try to stiff their workers for health insurance as well

**whembly**

SilverMK2 wrote:
whembly wrote:
SilverMK2 wrote:
whembly wrote:
Now that is a good case study... but, they have one thing going for them.

They're a business that's extremely popular and folks will pay the premium for their morning coffee.

I'd be interested to see how they're doing in two years.

Depends if they keep up with the the second thing going for them: Shifting around their money so they don't pay any tax.

Well... how's that any different from any large corporations?

Other large corporations also try to stiff their workers for health insurance as well

Heh... true.

It could also be that companies/small businesses are reacting to the ACA incentives (or disincentives) in a highly competitive industry... and that not adapting would put the overall company in a disadvantage.

**Haight**

Ouze wrote:
I haven't had any insurance changes, and my yearly merit raise was the largest it's ever been since starting with the company. So, I guess changes, but unrelated and positive.

No changes to my healthcare at all, and i have a 100% employer paid cadillac plan, offered to all employees, not just management.

Has also not impacted bonus pay at all.

Edit: I feel it's only fair to disclose, that i work for a privately held, European company. They are still bound by the strictures of the new law, but they are committed to providing full coverage of healthcare to the employees.

**Alfndrate**

I've had a change to healthcare and merit pay, but I don't believe it was caused by Obamacare. Our company changed our dental insurance for the entire company, forcing me to go from an HMO to a PPO because they found a cheaper alternative for Californian residents (company is in California with satellite offices around the world). But I don't think that was caused by Obamacare.

My merit-based pay is now based on the workings of the entire company. So I can work my arse off, do my job well, and be eligible for a 5% pay increase (I think that's the highest we can go), but if my company doesn't meet its financial goals then I don't get my 5% merit pay increase...

**whembly**

A friend of mine was in this Union...
Union dumps AFL-CIO for its positions on ObamaCare, immigration reform
Citing both the ACA and the proposed Immigration Reform. o.O

**azazel the cat**

whembly wrote:It could also be that companies/small businesses are reacting to the ACA incentives (or disincentives) in a highly competitive industry... and that not adapting would put the overall company in a disadvantage.

bs. If every company is required to partake in the ACA, then it can't cause a disadvantage for just a few companies.

**whembly**

azazel the cat wrote:
whembly wrote:It could also be that companies/small businesses are reacting to the ACA incentives (or disincentives) in a highly competitive industry... and that not adapting would put the overall company in a disadvantage.

bs. If every company is required to partake in the ACA, then it can't cause a disadvantage for just a few companies.

That's a mighty simplistic view on how the market works...

Remember that article on Delta? That it'll cost them millions of dollars? That's a drop of the bucket for them...

Now, imagine the same sort of impact on smaller company.

**djones520**

whembly wrote:
azazel the cat wrote:
whembly wrote:It could also be that companies/small businesses are reacting to the ACA incentives (or disincentives) in a highly competitive industry... and that not adapting would put the overall company in a disadvantage.

bs. If every company is required to partake in the ACA, then it can't cause a disadvantage for just a few companies.

That's a mighty simplistic view on how the market works...

Remember that article on Delta? That it'll cost them millions of dollars? That's a drop of the bucket for them...

Now, imagine the same sort of impact on smaller company.

Not exactly a drop in the bucket. From what I see their net income last year was 850 million. So that's 1/7th of their profit that their eating, which is a pretty huge chunk for their shareholders.

I don't buy it for a minute that they are going to "eat it". Customers will end up seeing the costs in some way. The rumored fee for carry-ons probably one of them.

**whembly**

Yup... it's a Zero Sum Game guys...

There will always be winners and losers.

**djones520**

whembly wrote:
Yup... it's a Zero Sum Game guys...

There will always be winners and losers.

And so far the losers seem to drastically be outnumbering the winners.

**whembly**

djones520 wrote:
whembly wrote:
Yup... it's a Zero Sum Game guys...

There will always be winners and losers.

And so far the losers seem to drastically be outnumbering the winners.

Well... that'll be certainly true if nothing changes... especially when the 40% "Cadillac Tax" on employer/union plans kicks in at 2017/2018. That'll hurt... big time.

**sebster**

whembly wrote:
That's a mighty simplistic view on how the market works...

Remember that article on Delta? That it'll cost them millions of dollars? That's a drop of the bucket for them...

Now, imagine the same sort of impact on smaller company.

Huh? Bigger company, more employees, big number. Smaller company, less employees, smaller number. But there's no reason to think the number shouldn't be proportionate between the two companies.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

djones520 wrote:
The rumored fee for carry-ons probably one of them.

That'd only be a good thing. When I was in the US having everyone take as carry-on multiple bags that were basically suitcases was madness. Not that I blamed the passengers, they were just avoiding the luggage fees by taking it as carry-on instead. The problem was having that system of charging for luggage but letting people take on luggage sized bags as carry-on.

**Frazzled**

djones520 wrote:
whembly wrote:
Yup... it's a Zero Sum Game guys...

There will always be winners and losers.

And so far the losers seem to drastically be outnumbering the winners.

The losers are the ones that didn't make the proper campaign contributions to get a waiver. Duh!

**azazel the cat**

djones520 wrote:
whembly wrote:
azazel the cat wrote:
whembly wrote:It could also be that companies/small businesses are reacting to the ACA incentives (or disincentives) in a highly competitive industry... and that not adapting would put the overall company in a disadvantage.

bs. If every company is required to partake in the ACA, then it can't cause a disadvantage for just a few companies.

That's a mighty simplistic view on how the market works...

Remember that article on Delta? That it'll cost them millions of dollars? That's a drop of the bucket for them...

Now, imagine the same sort of impact on smaller company.

Not exactly a drop in the bucket. From what I see their net income last year was 850 million. So that's 1/7th of their profit that their eating, which is a pretty huge chunk for their shareholders.

I don't buy it for a minute that they are going to "eat it". Customers will end up seeing the costs in some way. The rumored fee for carry-ons probably one of them.

850 million per quarter. So the 1/7th number is incorrect; it's actually 1/28th

**djones520**

Citation Azazel? Cause this says annual. I was wrong on the date, I qouted 2011 as well, not 2012.

http://pdf.secdatabase.com/2905/0001445305-12-000272.pdf

**azazel the cat**

djones520 wrote:Citation Azazel? Cause this says annual. I was wrong on the date, I qouted 2011 as well, not 2012.

http://pdf.secdatabase.com/2905/0001445305-12-000272.pdf

http://news.delta.com/index.php?s=43&item=2056

**djones520**

azazel the cat wrote:
djones520 wrote:Citation Azazel? Cause this says annual. I was wrong on the date, I qouted 2011 as well, not 2012.

http://pdf.secdatabase.com/2905/0001445305-12-000272.pdf

http://news.delta.com/index.php?s=43&item=2056

Seems like Delta is having a really good year.

**azazel the cat**

djones520 wrote:
azazel the cat wrote:
djones520 wrote:Citation Azazel? Cause this says annual. I was wrong on the date, I qouted 2011 as well, not 2012.

http://pdf.secdatabase.com/2905/0001445305-12-000272.pdf

http://news.delta.com/index.php?s=43&item=2056

Seems like Delta is having a really good year.

So much for that whole "the ACA will bankrupt everyone OMG!!!" argument that gets thrown about sometimes, then?

**whembly**

azazel the cat wrote:
djones520 wrote:
azazel the cat wrote:
djones520 wrote:Citation Azazel? Cause this says annual. I was wrong on the date, I qouted 2011 as well, not 2012.

http://pdf.secdatabase.com/2905/0001445305-12-000272.pdf

http://news.delta.com/index.php?s=43&item=2056

Seems like Delta is having a really good year.

So much for that whole "the ACA will bankrupt everyone OMG!!!" argument that gets thrown about sometimes, then?

No... but I'd bet you that Delta isn't going to just "eat it".

Something is going to happen to offset that.

**azazel the cat**

whembly wrote:
azazel the cat wrote:
djones520 wrote:
azazel the cat wrote:
djones520 wrote:Citation Azazel? Cause this says annual. I was wrong on the date, I qouted 2011 as well, not 2012.

http://pdf.secdatabase.com/2905/0001445305-12-000272.pdf

http://news.delta.com/index.php?s=43&item=2056

Seems like Delta is having a really good year.

So much for that whole "the ACA will bankrupt everyone OMG!!!" argument that gets thrown about sometimes, then?

No... but I'd bet you that Delta isn't going to just "eat it".

Something is going to happen to offset that.

You mean a price increase or reduction of services that in no way will be any different than the dozen other arbitrary excuses they'd use anyway?