Target to Drop Health Insurance for Part-Time Workers

[bonnie]

Bet lot of Target employee's are thanking Obama about now.

Target to Drop Health Insurance for Part-Time Workers

Target Corp. (TGT) said it will end health insurance for part-time employees, joining Trader Joe’s Co., Home Depot Inc. and other retailers that have scaled back benefits in response to changes from Obamacare.

About 10 percent of Target’s part-time employees, defined as those working fewer than 30 hours a week, use the company’s health plans now, according to an announcement posted on the Minneapolis-based company’s website. Target said it would pay $500 to part-timers losing coverage and a consulting firm will help workers sign up for new Obamacare plans.

The U.S. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is the largest regulatory overhaul of health care since the 1960s, creating a system of penalties and rewards to encourage people to obtain medical insurance. The law known as Obamacare doesn’t require most companies to cover part-time workers, and offering them health plans may disqualify those people from subsidies in new government-run insurance exchanges that opened in October.

“Health care reform is transforming the benefits landscape and affecting how all employers, including Target, administer health benefits coverage,” Jodee Kozlak, Target’s executive vice president of human resources, said in yesterday’s web posting. She cited “new options available for our part-time team, and the historically low number of team members who elected to enroll in the part-time plan.”

The health law requires all companies employing 50 or more people to offer health insurance to those working 30 or more hours starting in 2015. No part-timers will see their hours cut, Kozlak said. Target, the second largest U.S. discount retailer, had an estimated 361,000 total employees at the end of the last fiscal year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Affordable Plans

The Affordable Care Act created new government-run health insurance exchanges to sell coverage beginning this month to uninsured people, often with premiums discounted by federal subsidies. It disqualifies Americans for subsidies at the exchanges if they have an offer of “affordable” coverage from their employers, defined as an insurance premium less than 9.5 percent of their income.

Target said on its website that many of its part-time workers may prefer coverage from the health law’s exchanges, and that by offering them insurance, “we could actually disqualify many of them from being eligible” for subsidies.

Coverage for Target employees who work fewer than 30 hours will end April 1, the company said. Open enrollment for 2014 under the Affordable Care Act closes a day earlier.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Wayne in Washington at awayne3@bloomberg.net

[phkrause]

BONNIE

it seems more and more companies are leaving there part time

employers out in the cold to speak---that is sad

dgrimm60

Yes dgrimm, that is sad. I wonder what they called it when the company I was working for dropped there insurance for part time employees???

[bonnie]

Originally Posted By: dgrimm60

BONNIE

it seems more and more companies are leaving there part time

employers out in the cold to speak---that is sad

dgrimm60

Yes dgrimm, that is sad. I wonder what they called it when the company I was working for dropped there insurance for part time employees???

Companies are going to do what is best for their business.

Always have. However this is a first where companies by large numbers are dropping employee's and cutting back hours.

Business owners that are in a position to do so are closing because of the Affordable Care Act,that act that many can't afford.This isn't even fully implemented yet

[bonnie]

There simply is not a free lunch.Maybe you will get your lunch free but it is paid by someone else. We are running out of the "someone else".

The pain of this is not going to hit all uniformly or at once,but a little like the frog in the water,it will end up harming all in the long run.

We have prescription coverage,a medication my husband must have is not generic at this time. In Nov we paid 35.00 for a 285.00 prescription.In Dec we paid 104.00 towards the same prescription.

In an we paid 135.00 for same.Insurance company said they are not paying as much towards certain drugs due to changes in the industry taking place and did tell me there will be more adjustments in te future

[Guest]

I wonder what they called it when the company I was working for dropped there insurance for part time employees???

So you're saying that nothing has changed eh? LOL, talk about low information! Not to mention willfully blind, it would seem. But we wouldn't expect anything else from you.

[bonnie]

So you're saying that nothing has changed eh? LOL, talk about low information! Not to mention willfully blind, it would seem. But we wouldn't expect anything else from you.

Just about any issue you can name has occurred before. Has it occurred as we are witnessing now and for the same reason?

There are those that are willfully blind to what is happening with a shrug and so what. Those that are going to get hit and hit hard are paying a little more attention