Wal-Mart’s decision to kick their part-time employees off their health care rolls and onto the ObamaCare exchanges is great news. There are more younger, healthier people going on the exchanges, which makes the exchanges stronger and cheaper. A bigger percentage of working people are getting their health care from the government. More working class people are getting the benefit of a subsidy to help pay for their health care. The idea that employers should be the providers of health care for their employees is eroded even further.
I can’t say that this is the beginning of a straight line to a single-payer system, but it’s definitely a blow to the uniquely stupid and accidental American system of providing protection against medical catastrophe.
And it lets the cat out of the bag. We already subsidize Wal-Mart’s low wages with things like food stamps and heating assistance to their dead-broke employees. Why not just be up front about it? We’ll pay for their health care, too.
I’m digging the darker, more cynical Booman.
You were off fighting the Balrog, weren’t you?
It shows?
I got to call you. If not today, tomorrow at the latest.
Call whenever, but I’ve got family visiting starting late tonight and a visit to our sick granny/great-grandma today.. So any time is as bad as the next! 😉
Okay, maybe it can wait until Sunday or something.
Probably not great for the Wal-Mart employees but, hey, what do you care?
Actually, it is generally good for WM employees (unless you are in a state that didn’t take the Medicaid expansion). See this detailed post from a BJ contributor. http://www.balloon-juice.com/2014/10/08/walmart-thoughts/
Richard Mayhew knows his stuff on the ACA; he’s a professional. His POV is trustworthy; he’s been reporting the good, bad and complicated on the ACA for a while now.
The pressure on the Stupid States to expand Medicaid eligibility is going to become excruciating. Not due to the morality of the situation; Republicans don’t care about sick and dying poor people. No, it’ll be budgetary pressure, along with the hospital, doctor, health clinic, pharmaceutical and medical equipment lobbyists in their States.
Not expanding Medicaid is bad for business. That conclusion will eventually overcome GOP resistance everywhere.
What’s stupid is leaving employee coverage up to employers.
Do we leave the minimum wage up to employers?
Workplace safety?
Overtime rules?
Obamacare is a step toward mandatory insurance coverage thru employers.
That’s what’s really important about it (except the Medicaid expansion). It’s the part the “Heritage Plan” was a reaction to (they wanted individual mandates for all) and the part Romney tried to veto in Massachusetts but the Democratic state legislature overrode him. It’s the reason you must never let anybody tell you this is a “Republican plan”.
Yup, this is great news for Obamacare.
Actually, it is good news for ObamaCare because of the younger base being added AND because it highlights why the ACA was done to begin with. Maybe more of those at the lower end will take notice.
It is GREAT news for eventual national heath care. Maybe we can find a way to skirt Republicans and catch up with the rest of the planet.
Not great optics for Walmart, not that I care about that.
Not seeing where WalMart part-time (<30 hours/week) workers are younger and healthier. Wouldn’t be surprised if some now learn that they qualify for Medicaid which is a better deal than what others will end up purchasing from a health insurance exchange. The thing is, is that they had an employee benefit that was taken away without advance notice and for no consideration.
Employer-based health care was far from accidental. It was a pre-emptive strike against the movement that resulted in Truman-s health care system proposal. Doctors formed Blue Cross and Blue Shield to head off FDR’s health care system proposals. So WellPoint writing the legislation for ObamaCare has a long tradition in the US.
Yes, WalMart has taken the first step towards moving the US to a single-payer system by delegitimizing employer-based health care for part-time workers (only added recently, by the way). When companies stop using benefits as golden handcuffs, there might be more of a crisis–one that could finally push toward single payer. Until then there is the abuses of narrow networks, co-pays, deductibles, and balance billing of patients through independent contracts to contend with.
I thought it happened because of wage and price controls during the war, well before Truman was even VP
The idea of employer-based healthcare was the major thing that sank Truman’s plan. At that point, the employer-based healthcare was pretty much limited to hospitalization (Blue Cross) and employees bought insurance for doctor’s office procedures (Blue Shield) on their own.
The original employer-based institutionalization of it could very well have been a negotiated thing during the labor squeeze on the war effort and the administration of wage and price controls.
Few workers bought insurance back then. Many doctors were hostile to insurance. They thought their patients were getting something for nothing. I remember. Sicilians never forget an insult.
As Jim IL pointed out, it was a benefit that companies could offer during WWII when wage and price controls were in effect. It was sweetened by the federal government that excluded the benefit from compensation and therefore taxation. It got a second boost when unions included health insurance benefits as part of their demands from employers. So, basically, it was a bad idea that was compounded multiple times.
And not having any idea what it cost, consumers were left in the dark as the cost of health care began significantly escalating in the late 1980s. So now we have a system that costs twice as much as what the people in other industrialized countries pay and overall get less.
As a millenial who has $13.05 unbudgeted for the month of October and is still uneligable for subsidies, fuck all y’all.
Hmmm….
We pay their health insurance, food stamps heating assistance….what else?
When do we get to the point the Government (meaning, the Taxpayers) pay for the Walmart Employee wages directly? I honestly sounds like we’re a fair percentage there already…
Some interesting “the devil is in the details” investigation into the WalMart move by the always terrific Charles Gaba at ACASignups.net:
http://acasignups.net/14/10/07/other-shoe-drops-wal-mart-eliminates-health-insurance-30k-part-time-w
orkers-updated-x2
As always, the giant companies give with one hand and stick the shiv in with the other.
But on a macro level (re disentangling healthcare from employment), I hope it will be a positive development.
One other rumored wrinkle. WalMart intends to sell health care insurance plans through businesses at its stores. The image I got was the space for opticians, loan agencies, and so on.
Wal-Mart was experimenting with walk-in primary care. It actually wasn’t bad as far as cost and quality were concerned. Although doubt it could be brought up to scale.
Am surprised that Wal-Mart hasn’t gotten into the pay-day lending biz. Wall St. is doing well in this financial sector. As much as it pains me to say this, Wal-Mart would probably be a less predatory pay-lender.
I owe my soul,.. to the company store!
Some ostensibly progressive companies have done this already, Trader Joe’s and Target. IIRC at Trader Joe’s they explicitly claimed the Obamacare was a better deal than they could offer. Of course their pay is better than Walmart so their workers are less likely to qualify for Medicaid.