Wal-Mart cuts some part-time health benefits

[OneCrazyDiamond]

Source: usatoday

NEW YORK — Wal-Mart Stores plans to eliminate health insurance coverage for some of its part-time U.S. employees in a move aimed at controlling rising health care costs of the nation's largest private employer.

Starting Jan. 1, Wal-Mart told The Associated Press that it will no longer offer health insurance to employees who work less than an average of 30 hours a week. The move, which would affect 30,000 employees, follows similar decisions by Target, Home Depot and others to eliminate health insurance benefits for part-time employees.

"We had to make some tough decisions," Sally Wellborn, Wal-Mart's senior vice president of benefits, told The Associated Press.

Wellborn says the company will use a third-party organization to help part-time workers find insurance alternatives: "We are trying to balance the needs of (workers) as well as the costs of (workers) as well as the cost to Wal-Mart."

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2014/10/07/wal-mart-health-benefits/16854801/

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the company will use a third-party organization to help part-time workers

The Government.

[bigworld]

1. They never covered those people in the first place

They provided an _opportunity_ to buy a plan. I'll bet you that an equivalent Obamacare plan will be cheaper in most cases for most of these workers. Competition in the heath care field, ain't it great?

[Indydem]

8. You are wrong.

My mom gets very good insurance, partially subsidized by Wal-Mart.

She is terrified.

[Ampersand Unicode]

12. I read your sig about BBC/CBC broadcasts and now I want Canada to take over U.S.

I'd even be willing to sit through a mandatory Justin Bieber concert just to have that delicious humanitarian CanuckCare over here.

[closeupready]

2. Single. Payer. End of story.

[Ampersand Unicode]

11. Would there have to be a "religious exemption" to that?

The gist of the Hobby Lobby decision was that the employer was not required to provide insurance for things that the bosses found "sinful" or against their religion. If employer health insurance policies go the way of Radio Shack warranties, and we all pay into a public pool providing the same quality of care, would those religious exemptions then come under the Hyde Amendment, which as of now singles out abortion specifically as something tax dollars are prohibited from funding? Wouldn't that mean, then, that the only people who could afford things that XYZ religious group cried foul about (Scientologists with mental-health care, Christians with... pretty much everything else), would be people who could afford to purchase it out-of-pocket?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the Hyde Amendment mean that if your sole health insurance provider is Medicaid, you cannot get an abortion (unless you can afford one OOP, and chances are if you're on Medicaid you probably can't), because your health insurance is taxpayer-funded? What would the ridiculous religious exemptions mean if we had single-payer? What about AIDS medications, which the evangelicals have been whining about for years? Would this country really be so callous as to let people die so as not to brush up against the precious First Amendment?

[closeupready]

13. Single payer = federal taxpayers bankroll health care.

If your question is, 'would there be a religious exemption to the use of federal tax money drawn from religiously observant taxpayers (i.e., the Hobby Lobby decision) in order to bankroll health care services, such as abortion?'

I don't know the answer to that, but whatever applies with regard to tax laws, case law, IRS rules, etc. as they impact religious conscientious objectors in other areas, those same things would apply here.

[IronLionZion]

15. Whip the votes in Congress for HR 676

and have it on the president's desk by end of day. Should be easy right?

[closeupready]

3. And another thing: WTF is this, "we had to make some tough decisions."

Nonsense. They are America's largest employer; they made this decision because they CHOSE to.

[greatlaurel]

4. Walmart is being run into the ground by incompetent management.

The way Walmart is being run is following the classic model of running a company into the ground. Employees should be looking for other jobs asap. Small investors should unload any Walmart stock quickly.

Sam's kids do not know how to run a business. They only hire people who tell them what they want to hear, which is they can keep raking in billions without investing in their employees and providing value to their customers. The Walmart stores in my area have less and less merchandise and no customer service. These stores are located in rural areas and have little competition and yet the parking lots are becoming emptier and emptier every month. People are choosing to drive many miles rather than shop at Walmart, mainly because the Walmart stores have so little selection.

[cstanleytech]

5. I actually find the selection at most walmarts in the grocery area to be fairly decent for the most

part.
Its the customer service or lack there of that ticks me off but thats not the employees fault that you have to wait in long lines its managements fault.
I mean hell my brothers girlfriend works for them and for the last year she has averaged 16 hours per week in pharmacy and its not that they dont have the hours to give but rather from what I have been told the managers are cutting the hours to pad their own bonus checks.

[greatlaurel]

6. The local Walmart cannot bother to stock graham crackers or peanuts.

There are always empty spaces on the shelves in the grocery section. They do not feel they have to stock it because there is so little competition, imo. People are choosing to drive out of town to go grocery shopping rather than waste their time at the Walmart.

I am sure there are Walmarts that get stocked properly. It is really amazing how hit and miss their decision is to stock a store.

The pharmacy has to be a huge money maker for the company. It surely proves how bankrupt their management philosophy is, if they refuse to staff the pharmacy. Even in most rural areas, there is always more than one pharmacy choice.

[cstanleytech]

7. Never had that issue here unless its a sale item and then that happens even at regular grocery

stores.
And ya I imagine they are earning tons with the pharmacy but like usual walmart doesnt believe in providing a job that their workers can live on when walmart can get away with paying below poverty level wages.

[Ampersand Unicode]

10. Graham crackers were originally invented as a form of (unintended) "birth control"

The idea being that they were bland and boring, and eating them in large quantities would turn you into a bland and boring person who doesn't feel "lust" (and therefore would never have sex). Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham (no relation to Billy or Franklin) developed so-called "Graham wafers" for people to eat as part of a stringent health-food diet devoid of comfort foods, satiating meats, and (of course) alcohol of any sort. (Wikipedia)

The graham cracker was originally conceived of as a health food as part of the Graham Diet, a regimen to suppress what he considered unhealthy carnal urges, the source of many maladies according to Graham. Reverend Graham would often lecture on "self-abuse", as masturbation was commonly called at the time. Graham would often say how these experiences were inspired by children eating crackers. One of his many theories was that one could curb one's sexual appetite by eating bland foods. Another man who held this belief was John Harvey Kellogg, the inventor of the corn flakes cereal.

So clearly, Wal-Mart is acting on their religious freedom not to stock "birth control" systems. No sex, no kids.

(Although of course, short-circuiting God's plan for babies to come about from... somewhere wasn't exactly the intent.)

[sakabatou]

9. Lemme guess, it's because they couldn't "afford" them

Even though Walmart is friggin' rich! WTF?!

[True Blue Door]

14. Must squeeze every last drop of blood from the stone that is the American worker.

Can't let the peons get uppity by letting them think they're entitled to live.