By JANET ADAMY,Wall Street Journal, SEPTEMBER 30, 2010
McDonald's Corp. has warned federal regulators that it could drop its health insurance plan for nearly 30,000 hourly restaurant workers unless regulators waive a new requirement of the U.S. health overhaul.
The Big Mac Attack On ObamaCare
A big employer mulls dropping health insurance coverage due to ObamaCare's mandates. The claim that if you like your plan you can keep it was a lie, and the effort to destroy private insurance is working. The 30,000 or so hourly workers at McDonald's undoubtedly like the health care plan their employer provides and would like to keep it. For $14 a week, a worker gets a plan that caps annual benefits at $2,000; $32 a week gets you coverage up to $10,000.
They get minimum coverage at a minimum price, but most younger workers are healthy and for that reason, they constitute a high percentage of the uninsured. What McDonald's Corp. offers is not a one-size-fits-all nanny-state special that forces young males to pay for mammograms.
President Obama promised that under ObamaCare these workers could keep these plans, but McDonald's has told federal regulators in a memo that it would be 'economically prohibitive' for its insurance carrier to continue to cover its hourly workers unless it receives a waiver to the ObamaCare requirement that 80% of premiums for such 'mini-med' plans be spent on medical care. Other large employers who offer such plans could find themselves in the same dilemma....
This administration doesn't understand how businesses operate and really doesn't care. As for private insurers, the White House doesn't care if they're driven out of business due to higher costs. ... Companies such as McDonald's, and insurance companies too, must manage their bottom lines to stay in business. ObamaCare distorts a system based on risk and turns it into an entitlement that is based on political considerations and aimed at getting as many people totally dependent on government as possible. --Investor's Business Daily
Comment: McDonald's is one of the few restaurants that provide health care insurance for their employees. That could change. The effect of Obamacare is to destroy the private health care insurance industry, forcing everyone into the government provided health care insurance. I think that was the intent. Obamacare must be overturned. Until it is, many more people will pay much more for insurance premiums and many will have to go without insurance.
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I would think this would be a topic to research further.
ReplyDeleteAccording to another blog or two that I read, the reason they would have to change the plans would be the payout/premium ration in laymen's terms. The plans cost a whole hell of a lot for the minimum benefits, and as such they don't really constitute insurance as we think about it. They are such a bad choice that the free market (if you will) is a better choice. McDonald’s provides mini-med plans for workers ... A single worker can pay $14 a week for a plan that caps annual benefits at $2,000, or about $32 a week to get coverage up to $10,000 a year. Last week, a senior McDonald’s official informed the Department of Health and Human Services that the restaurant chain’s insurer won’t meet a 2011 requirement to spend at least 80% to 85% of its premium revenue on medical care. [http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/mcdonalds-health-plan-obamacare-casualty/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+OTB+(Outside+The+Beltway+|+OTB)&utm_content=Google+Reader]
Here is another link:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2010/09/30/id-rather-have-a-plan-on-the-new-health-exchanges-than-mcdonalds-health-insurance-any-day-of-the-week/
From that link:
As a cashier making $7.51 an hour I would be on the hook for a yearly premium of $494 or about $9.5 a week. I’d get far, far superior health coverage for about $4.50 less a week than the cheapest McDonald’s plan, which caps benefits at $2,000 – $83 less than my out of pocket maximum on the silver plan which has an actuarial value, at this income, of 94%
McDonald’s could also take advantage of the free choice vouchers built into the law (another fingerprint of the excellent Ron Wyden) which allow people to opt into the exchanges even if their employer provides coverage.