Tag Archives: Obamacare

News

Unionized UPS to drop health insurance for 15,000 spouses because of Obamacare

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The Washington Times reports. (H/T Letitia)

Excerpt:

Citing Obamacare, the United Parcel Service plans to remove 15,000 spouses from its health care plan because they are eligible for coverage elsewhere.

Rising medical costs, “combined with the costs associated with the Affordable Care Act, have made it increasingly difficult to continue providing the same level of health care benefits to our employees at an affordable cost,” UPS said in a memo to employees, Kaiser Health News reported.

UPS expects the move will save about $60 million a year, company spokesman Andy McGowan said.

The health law requires large employers to cover employees and dependent children, but not spouses or domestic partners, Kaiserreported.

On Tuesday, Forever 21 Inc. became the latest national company to cut employee hours to counter the impact of Obamacare, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reported.

The Heritage Foundation has more on that Forever 21 story.

Excerpt:

A leaked memo shared last week on social media with the hashtag #Never21 proves the company capped some full-time workers at 29.5 hours a week as of August 18, resulting in a loss of the health coverage and other benefits offered to full-time workers.

Conservatives have warned that the provision under Obamacare defining a full-time worker as one who works 30 hours a week or more incentivizes businesses to drastically cut workers’ hours to avoid the heavy financial burden of mandatory insurance requirements under the bill.

Forever 21 joins several fast food chains that have cut workers’ hours to less than 30 in the past few months, ahead of the provision taking effect.

I’ve blogged about several of these companies who are having to adjust to Obamacare, but actually, this is not happening to a company here and a company there.

Reuters explains:

U.S. businesses are hiring at a robust rate. The only problem is that three out of four of the nearly 1 million hires this year are part-time and many of the jobs are low-paid.

Faltering economic growth at home and abroad and concern that President Barack Obama’s signature health care law will drive up business costs are behind the wariness about taking on full-time staff, executives at staffing and payroll firms say.

Employers say part-timers offer them flexibility. If the economy picks up, they can quickly offer full-time work. If orders dry up, they know costs are under control. It also helps them to curb costs they might face under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

Now on first glance, it would seem that conservatives should be happy because the leftists who voted for Obama are finally getting what they deserve.

However, my conservative deist friend ECM says “not so fast”:

This would be entertaining, but this is a feature, not a bug.

Remember: they passed the present Ocare on the premise that 44-million were uninsured (never mind how bogus that stat was/is)–now that the ranks are being swelled by the self-same act, there will be tens of millions more which, as the left is wont to do, will be used as ‘proof’ that we need single-payer, not that Ocare wrecked a working market for healthcare.

(No, it doesn’t matter that everyone against this law said *exactly* this would happen, because, to the left, cause and effect and accurate predictions–despite their pretensions at being scientifically-minded–are never valid unless it confirms their biases, so they’ll just blame ‘big business’ and the bogeyman for why it’s going in exactly the direction the sane said it would. The media will reinforce this and, pow, single-payer.)

So laugh while you can–it won’t be funny for long.

I think that this could go either way. If the media covers up for Obama because they want single payer, and the conservatives pick someone like Mitt Romney instead of Bobby Jindal or Paul Ryan or Ted Cruz, then we are going to lose. We are going to lose because people will blame the decisions of private businesses instead of the Obamacare that forced them to make those decisions.

We still have the 2014 elections coming up. The public needs to have a good taste of what Obamacare does in order to understand what they’re getting. If they still choose to elect Democrats after seeing the effects of socialism, then they’ll have to live with socialism. I’m fine with it. I don’t plan to be working when the bill comes due, and I’m not going to be paying for big houses and college tuition, either.

News

Harry Reid: Obamacare is “absolutely” a step towards single payer health care system

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Here’s a Forbes magazine article by health care policy expert Avik Roy.

Excerpt: (links removed)

When I speak to conservatives about health care policy, I’m often asked the question: “Do you think that Obamacare is secretly a step toward single-payer health care?” I always explain that, while progressives may want single-payer, I don’t think that Obamacare is deliberately designed to bring about that outcome. Well, yesterday on PBS’ Nevada Week In Review, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) was asked whether his goal was to move Obamacare to a single-payer system. His answer? “Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes.”

In one sense, this isn’t shocking. Reid and many other Democrats, including President Obama, have often stated that their ideal health-care system is one in which the government abolishes the private insurance market. Video of the PBS discussion isn’t yet online, but here’s how Karoun Demirjian of the Las Vegas Sun described it:

Reid said he thinks the country has to “work our way past” insurance-based health care during a Friday night appearance on Vegas PBS’ program “Nevada Week in Review.”

“What we’ve done with Obamacare is have a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever,” Reid said.

When then asked by panelist Steve Sebelius whether he meant ultimately the country would have to have a health care system that abandoned insurance as the means of accessing it, Reid said: “Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes.”

Reid noted that he and other progressives fought hard for a “public option” in the exchanges as a Trojan horse for single-payer, but Democrats didn’t have 60 votes in the Senate to achieve it:

The idea of introducing a single-payer national health care system to the United States, or even just a public option, sent lawmakers into a tizzy back in 2009, when Reid was negotiating the health care bill.

“We had a real good run at the public option … don’t think we didn’t have a tremendous number of people who wanted a single-payer system,” Reid said on the PBS program, recalling how then-Sen. Joe Lieberman’s opposition to the idea of a public option made them abandon the notion and start from scratch.

Eventually, Reid decided the public option was unworkable.

“We had to get a majority of votes,” Reid said. “In fact, we had to get a little extra in the Senate, we have to get 60.”

Do you like the service you get at the Department of Motor Vehicles or the Post Office? How would you like to get your health care the same way? That’s what the Democrats are trying to do. We could have gone in another direction and legislated consumer-focused health care, providing an experience similar to Amazon.com – but we didn’t. We can’t keep electing communists and then acting surprised when they push us towards communism.

News

Blue Cross, Aetna, United, Humana opt out of Obamacare exchanges

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From CNS News.

Excerpt:

Major health insurance companies – Blue Cross, Aetna, United, Humana – have fled the Obamacare health care exchanges in various states, which are scheduled to start on Oct. 1.

[…]The ACA requires every American to have health insurance, or pay a penalty.  Individuals who are not covered by their employer can enroll in the state or federal government-run health care “marketplace,” which will provide subsidies to individuals between 100 and 400 percent of the poverty line.

Aetna, a fortune 100 company with $34.2 billion in revenue, has pulled out of public exchanges in three states, and will not be part of the individual health insurance exchange in its home base, Connecticut.

[…]Aetna will also not participate in California’s exchange, and a spokesperson told CNSNews.com that the company never intended to do so.

“We did not withdraw exchange plans in California, as we never planned participation nor filed [Qualified Health Plans] QHPs to participate in the California exchange,” a spokesperson said.

Anthem Blue Cross has withdrawnfrom its bid to participate in the state’s small business exchange, as well.

United Health Group, the largest health insurer in the United States, has also taken a pass on the Golden State’s individual insurance market under Obamacare.

As a result, roughly 8,000 policyholders will be left searching for new insurance.

[…]Only three companies remain in Connecticut’s “Access Health CT” exchange, following Aetna’s departure.

Similarly, only five plans are participating in the exchange in Georgia, after Aetna and Coventry Health Insurance dropped out last week.

The Savannah Morning News noted that this will “leave residents of some parts of the state with limited choice.”

[…]Two of the three largest health insurers in Wisconsin will also not participate in the state’s online marketplace under Obamacare, it was announced on Wednesday.

But I thought that Obama said that people who liked their current health care plan could keep it?

“No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period,” Obama said on June 15, 2009.

“If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period,” he said.  “No one will take it away. No matter what.”

That promise, however, has been revised by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which now says, “you may be able to keep your current doctor” in the health insurance marketplace.

Oh I see, once the election is over, then the truth comes out. But it doesn’t matter, because Obama already won the election on the strength of the lie.

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