Tuesday, January 21, 2014

#ObamaCare Wreckage: Target Drops Health Insurance for Part-Time Employees

It's the MediCaid-ization of health insurance, c/o ObamaCare.

At Bloomberg, "Target to Drop Health Insurance for Part-Time Workers." And at WSJ, "Target Cuts Health Coverage for Part-Time Workers: Retailer Points to Insurance Options Available Through Public Exchanges" (at Google).

Here's the announcement at Target's homepage, "Talking Health Care with EVP of Human Resources Jodee Kozlak" (via Yid With Lid):
At Target, we have a longstanding commitment to our team members’ health and well-being. We have been researching and evaluating how the transforming health care landscape will impact our team members and our company. Along the way, we have been firmly committed to making the best decisions for our team members and Target.

The launch of Health Insurance Marketplaces provides new options for health care coverage that we believe our part-time team members may prefer. In fact, by offering them insurance, we could actually disqualify many of them from being eligible for newly available subsidies that could reduce their overall health insurance expense.

In addition, the majority of our part-time team members who have been eligible for our health insurance coverage don’t enroll. Today, less than 10 percent of our total team member population participates in our part-time plan.

As a result, and after much thoughtful consideration, we have decided to discontinue part-time health insurance coverage for our stores’ part-time team members, beginning April 1, 2014.
Well, their enrollment for part-timers of course would have surged due to the individual mandate, so low enrollment can't be a reason for the corporate policy shift. Frankly, Target's going to save money by dumping employees onto the exchanges, and in turn their workers will be left with substandard MediCaid-style insurance, waiting lists, doctor shortages, and substandard care. We'll be hearing lots more of these stories throughout the year. Great job Democrats. And good luck in November.

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