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Walmart Ends Healthcare Benefits For Workers Under 30 Hours
Under the title (only-a-PR-person-could-make-up) "Providing Quality Benefits for Our Associates," Walmart - who employs 1.3 million people in America, has changed its eligibility standards for healthcare benefits. "Like every company," they explain "Walmart faces rising healthcare costs," and so are ending benefits for associates who work less than 30 hours a week.
In the U.S., the 1.3 million people who work at our stores, clubs and distribution centers are vital to a great experience for the 140 million customers shopping with us each week. We’re in business because our associates bring us their unique skills and talents – and so we do our absolute best to offer all the benefits that come with a great job, particularly affordable health insurance.
Anyone who has been following the news for the last several years knows that health care is a major topic of debate. From doctors’ visits and prescriptions to insurance premiums, health care costs have increased for all of us – individuals and the companies that insure them – each year. Knowing this, Walmart continues to work with health care providers and professionals, using our size and influence to negotiate the best rates and options for our associates.
Like every company, Walmart continues to face rising health care costs. This year, the expenses were significant and led us to make some tough decisions as we begin our annual enrollment. As a result, today we announced that our associates will see an increase in premiums for 2015. For example, our most popular and lowest cost associate-only plan will increase by $3.50 to $21.90 per pay period – still half the average premium other retail employees pay.
We’re also changing eligibility for some part-time associates. We will continue to provide affordable health care to all eligible associates, including part-time, who work more than 30 hours. However, similar to other retailers like Target, Home Depot, Walgreens and Trader Joe’s, we will no longer be providing health benefits to part-time associates who work less than 30 hours. This will impact about 2% of our total U.S. workforce. We will be working with a specialist, HealthCompare, to personally guide our associates through the process of finding the right, affordable health care.
We are proud of the health care plans we offer, which are among the best in the retail industry, as well as the new benefits we’ve introduced over the past two years for our associates. This includes a vision plan that launched this year and our innovative Centers of Excellence program that began in 2013 that covers select spine and heart procedures at no cost to our associates. We expanded Centers of Excellence this year to include knee and hip replacement surgeries and, for 2015, we’re excited to be adding breast, lung and colorectal cancer care at the Mayo Clinic.
We don’t make these decisions lightly, and the fact remains that our plans exceed those of our peers in the retail industry. Our premiums remain well below the industry average compiled by expert Aon Hewitt. We also continue to pay the majority of health care costs for associates covered under our medical plans. For example, on average we cover more than 60% of our associates’ total health care costs and more than 75% of their premium costs. In contrast, the retail industry pays, on average, about 54% of total health care costs and 68% of employee premiums.
All of our eligible associates – both full and part-time – will continue to benefit from our health care options that include no lifetime maximum, preventative care covered at 100%, and $250 up to $1,000 to help pay for medical expenses. We believe these options are among the best in the retail industry.
As our associates continue to work hard for our customers, we will continue working hard to keep their benefits as affordable as possible, enhance the quality of health care they receive and make the cost more transparent, which will benefit everyone.
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We suspect the refrain from the American taxpayer will go something like "thanks Obamacare, you're welcome Walmart."
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The main problem of today's modern age is to increase labor productivity and the resulting overproduction. Overproduction creates a strong pressure on the labor market. Whereas, due to increasing labor productivity is sufficient to produce the same amount of work, fewer people, more and more people are becoming redundant. With increasing unemployment and then increases the pressure even on the remaining workers - must do more and at a lower salary because they can always be replaced by someone from the unemployed. It's a paradox, but labor productivity increasing while reducing the living standards of workers.
Another problem is, when labor productivity solves artificial employment. The result of this solution is the overproduction of food (see fruit in the EU), overproduction of cars, electronics, unnecessary services sector (marketing, bureaucracy ...), waste of resources, energy, and raw materials consumed by unnecessary environmental burden. Producers to be able sell excess productio must use all sorts of unfair trading strategy (aggressive marketing, shortening product life, blending surplus sugar in all others food products, the introduction of scrappage schemes-cars, the pursuit of export at any cost, ...)
Reduced working hours is a good step to solve all these problems. Reduce unnecessary production, will stop wasting resources while unemployment will fall, and thanks to this the employees will be better negotiating position of their salaries. Paradoxically reduced working hours can lead to growth in staff salaries.
I don't think all of the labor and wage issues today can be blamed simply on economic choices. There is politics and popular culture at work in the mix too. I think your analogy is too simple in scope.
You can bet Walmart doubles down on the life insurance they take out on their employees.
Yes, dead peasants are much more valuable to Wal-Mart than live employees.
Put the blame SQUARELY where it belongs:
Public "education".
Or more accurately, the lack thereof.
A fucking retarded snail could see what was going to happen, given the circumstances.
This did not take much in the way of critical thinking.
Hence....sound bites equate truth in today's publicly-educated idiocracy.
I am preparing my superbowl-style party for when the employer mandates really kick in, and especially when the unions get fucked over by having to pay 40% tax on their gold-plated health insurance. That's when the REAL fun begins.
They demanded it. They got it. And they most certainly deserve it.
Long, hard and dry.
And for the rest of you that are not on welfare or getting subsidies....enjoy your 5-digit deductibles.
In this case end means transferring the cost to you dear tax payers. Especially those of you who avoid the Walmart invasion centers. The fan is damn close...
Hospitals are expert at shifting these 'no-pay' patient costs to the people who have insurance or enough cash to go after in court.
Strategic goals with health care, minimum wages and taxation of income
http://beforeitsnews.com/healthcare/2013/01/strategic-goals-with-health-...
Hard to believ it will only impact 2% of their total US workforce. I thought most of their jobs were under 30 hrs. What are they including in their total US workforce?
Whocouldanode?
1, Universal cooperative style cradle to grave health care- voluntarily beside existing private= but they will bancrupt soon as people will choose cooperative healt care
2, all benefits must be taken out of employers and paid by employees. Similar to SS
3, this must be acompanied by minimum wages strategies and changes of tax codes.
By current political regime in the USA this for long run, social problems will be here before this preventive steps be taken. Elites do not care about serfs. And serfs elect them 'cause stockholm syndrome
Yo bitch.
I can't stand the place, but my 90 year old father likes Walmart. He uses the shopping cart as a walker and gets his excercise going all around the store. The fact that they treat their employees like shit doesn't matter to him. Last Labor Day I went to Costco to do some shopping and found that it was closed for the holiday. Even though I'd wasted a drive across town, I was happy to know that Costco employees were enjoying their three day weekend and that I supported a company that treats it's employees well. I'm sure Walmart was open, and probably had some Labor Day specials.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/09/05/why-costco-is-crushing-...
When I was little we played "school", "store", and one time "doctor". We would mimic adults and what we thought they would do. We ignored inconvenient facts in our games such as we did not have a real cash register or use real money and things like that. We would pretend and use "make believe".
This is the same type of thinking that big government types/liberals use when dreaming up policy and writing legislation. They are just playing the role of adult and making it up as they go along. Things rarely work out the way they planned. People and businesses make rational decisions. The government hasn't used real money for a long time either.
If Walmart employees are concerned about their health, they should care less about losing “healthcare benefits”; which are, in reality, “death” care benefits.
The real truth is that the medical industry has no interest in health; it thrives on sickness. I mean, what else can we conclude when 75,000 die every year under its care? It, in fact, produces sickness, or causes a hastened rate of degeneration with its prescription drugs. A prescription drug means it has been approved by the FDA for public consumption. However, before the FDA will accept a concoction for examination, the applicant must include a so-called LD-50 (Lethal Dosage, 50%). This form details what dosage will kill 50% of those who ingest it.
In other words, all prescription drugs contain poisons.
Thus, if you’re interested in health, you need to get as far away from the medical industry as possible. Most so-called health professionals are not much better.
I’ve been experimenting with this approach for more than 45 years, and have achieved results far beyond what I ever expected: I have REDUCED – not SLOWED – my biological age more than 50 years. How do I verify this? Hitting baseballs is my exercise, and I’ve had many former pro and college players tell me that if I played ball at the level of a major college, I would “wreck” the league, among numerous other compliments. Players at this level are around the age of twenty (FIFTY years younger than me) and a few of them are a season or two away from a major league roster. In this video, I’m hitting 117-121 mph fast balls. It will lead you to an intro to my regimen.
In other words, my health regimen can replace the standard “health insurance”; which is not a “health” insurance – but a sort of “death” insurance. You see, it only subsidizes prescription drugs or related activities, and leads to faster degeneration and death. My regimen does the opposite.
Of course, this “death” insurance is exactly what “they” want: the faster Americans die after they retire, the longer retirement systems (such as SSA) will operate before they bankrupt, and those guilty of plundering such systems will have to answer for what they did.
LOL. About 33% of the population is like you; lotions and potions, health crazes, fitness, etc. This month it's that supplement, four months from now it's another suppliment. "But you told me this monkey turd coffee was the secrets stuff and it did this and that for you, and now you're telling me it's the liquid they extract from a squirrel's anal glands . . . "
Live moderately, show love and kindness to others, keep it simple. Two months from now a neighbors son shoots you dead from behind in your own front yard while your mowing the grass or he and a friend beat your wife to death outside a Walgreen's and your life is ruined because you lost your only reason for living in her, or you get cancer, hit by a drunk driver, etc.
I have heard the speil before. I've know about dozen people in my life who had cancer. The ones that went through the chemo and surgery are still here. The ones that went to Mexico for alternative treatment, changed nutrition, ect are all dead.
It's a business that brings in billions of dollars a year to convince you to do this or do that wether it's western medicine or eastern or holistic etc.
You will die. Nothing will stop that eventuality.
Had to laugh at a prominent news reporter on PBS. He only eats organic food, does the fitness, the suppliments, blah blah, blah. They test his blood (read the results on TV) and it was off the charts for DDT. He'd been exsposed to it in the apple orchards in upstate New York as a kid and now it was in him for good.
Who cares. How about just living your life as best you can and not worrying about it?
Matt 6: 34 "So, never be anxious about the next day, for the next day will have its own anxieties. Sufficient for each day is its own badness." Jesus
1 Timothy 4:8 "For bodily training is beneficial for a little; but godly devotion is beneficial for all things, as it holds promise of the life now and that which is to come." Paul
Eccl 9: 11"I have seen something further under the sun, that the swift do not always win the race, nor do the mighty win the battle, nor do the wise always have the food, nor do the intelligent always have the riches, nor do those with knowledge always have success, because time and unexpected events overtake them all. 12?For man does not know his time. Just as fish are caught in an evil net and birds are caught in a trap, so the sons of men are ensnared in a time of disaster, when it suddenly overtakes them." King Solomon.
CornFlakes,
Can you get back to us when you are sober...?
I disdain Wally world. I feel like I need to be disinfected after I leave one, so I stopped going.
If we get an ebola outbreak, odds are it will come from one of their shoppers.
That being said, in the interest of fairness, they were one of the last to get rid of part-timer health insurance.
Target and most of the other biggie retailers already got rid of theirs, too.
Due to Obammycare.
the new capitalism! taxpayers get to subsidize the profits of companies that refuse to pay a living wage to their employees.......and labor is so stupid they won't stand up for themselves.
Its just plain old fascism, something I'll assume you are for.
Define a "living wage", especially for employees working less than 30 hours a week. I'm all for what is right but this narrative doesn't pass the smell test based on this particular article that refer to less than full time employees. Your statement is part of the problem, the narrative parroted without considering the details muddies the conversational waters.
Also, can one really expect to make "a living wage", whatever that nebulous term means when the occupation is one of cashier, customer greeter, etc... If anyone expects those jobs to pay enough to live and or raise a family then they are living on a planet that has never existed and hopefully never will. Not trying to be cold hearted but those have traditionally been either starter jobs or supplemental income jobs, not careers.
However, no down arrow from me. I just happen to have a different view but it doesn't mean I'm right and your wrong or vice versa.
these jobs are the new factory jobs. factory jobs provided a living wage that was enforced by strong labor unions. without the labor unions corporations have run wages down so low that a full time job must be subsidized by taxpayer supported welfare. i have a problem providing profits for a company that refuses to pay their workers enough not to need my money to make ends meet.
my expectation is not for the company to just hand the money over to their labor force but for the labor force to organize and do something for themselves.
so my position is a little more nuanced. i don't blame walmart and mcdonalds for taking advantage of weak labor by not paying them but i also think those companies should pay for the welfare their employees have to receive to feed themselves, not me. i do blame labor for putting up with low wages. labor needs to organize and stand up for themselves. labor will not get a raise if all they know is "yes, master".
as my grandfather once told me, "take care of the poor. they will make you rich."
This is nothing more than one step closer to the desired outcome of the real end game of Obamacare. First was the bill made into law by hook or crook, mostly crook if memory serves with the likes of Nelson in Nebraska and the Louisiana Purchase being the most notorious examples. Second, the corporate America and even some healthcare providers pulled their "Briar Patch" act. You know, the narrative that the briar patch would be the worst of the worst for Br'er Rabbit when in fact it was exactly where he wanted to go tricking his captors. Why, you ask? Simple fact is that these initial steps were needed in order to set into motion the process of offloading all healthcare liabilities, risks and expensses from private corporate concerns onto the government. To the lowest common denominator it will be defined as "free healthcare for all" but the reality the weight falls squarely on the shoulders of the taxpayer.
Outside of Fed outright pumping liquidity into stocks, it is the only viable explanation for the 5 year straight up stock market ride as it certainly couldn't be based on actual economic activity or the anticipation of future earnings bumps unless of course a scheme was put in motion in which corporate profits could rise handsomely without a subsequent rise in sales. The downsizing of employees in the name of the bottom line earnings, while still making news is for the most part done, at least when it comes to moving the profit needle. Cost of sales are continuing to rise even though commodities appear to be capitulating. However, the one card left to play in order to move the corporate earnings needle is the offloading of healthcare benefits. Not only does it instantly move the earnings needle upward for many large companies it frees up billions of dollars that are earmarked for medical liabilities as these companies are self insured and the healthcare companies only serve as third party monetary management agents.
Under these circumstances it is easy to see companies crying the blues about Obamacare in the early stages, which has the psychological effect on many anti corporatist to blindly support Obamacare on that alone, but more so it obscures the fact that corporate America is standing stealthily but fully behind Obamacare. The end game will be a major boon for their bottom lines.
It's a win/win for the government and for corporate america. The government, under the intellectually dishonest narrative mind you, that since "we're paying for it" we now have full license to dictate what the people put in their bodies, how much and how often. This not only applies to food and drink but also prescription drugs which they already swing a pretty big stick. Sadly many Americans already parrot that particular false narrative. How many times have you said or heard someone say, "We're paying for it with higher premiums so we should regulate...'take your pick'" well before Obamacare took affect.
The insurance companies wield so much power in your personal healthcare under that same false narrative that "They pay for it so they should dictate the care you get regardless of circumstances. People buy into that narrative never realizing that the insurance companies don't pay for shit out of their own money. They get paid by us and even with all of the fat slobs of america they manage to make trillions in profits. Hmmm...
Bottom line is this healthcare scam is long running and many of "we the people" have been conditioned to believe the hype that the insurance companies have been paying for medical care out of some sort of good will act and if you think it is an onerous process now, in my opinion, you ain't seen nothing yet. But hey, at least it will be free, right????
If you are still a believer, the UK healthcare system has been held by many as some sort of model for decades. Take a peak at what is happening there now. Not the quality of care but the fact that they have recognized the system they have is unsustainable and is in need of some radical changes where the doctor's are seething as are the people due to the need to cram down cost and also reduce the number of procedures done, many of which are deemed unnecessary. That last part is probably accurate. Notice how under Obamacare we are finding out that many of the procedures like mammograms and prostate exams are coming under fire as being unnecessary due to the number of "false positives". Hmmm... not the story we have been sold for last few decades.
Pay attention. Naturally I could be totally wrong and in fact this rant may make no sense at all if I reread it. My apologies if the "logic" rambles but my own health is starting a more rapid decline and brain fatigue factor is kicking my ass. I'm just typing on the fly, off the top of my head and do not have the energy to go back and check for stupidity.
My guess is that over time the strategy of pushing health care onto the taxpayer will backfire because it will increase the portability of employment. In effect, the Walmart types have taken away a product feature/benefit of working there. Now there is no difference between them and the next retailer. Someday the economy will be robust again and then the labor market will demmand the benefits back. Unfortunetly, right now low skill employees are a dime a dozen.
A very high percentage. Have friends working there.
At least 40%. Cashier friend says EBT days, people have 2 baskets loaded. First pay with EBT, then WICK, while talking on smart phones, not obamaphones
Walmart lobbied for Obamacare big time. I heard it was to grind their competitors into the dirt. Now Walmart shifted employees to part time to avoid the insurance. But Walmart wants open availability, so employees cant schedule a second job
Walmart used to have a self funded high deductible, HSA health insurance option before Obamacare that was amazingly cheap. Walmart forced providers to accept their deal, and they couldnt hit the patient for the difference. It probably killed the hospitals, but there was almost no out of pocket. Wally would argue down a 10K bill to 2K, pay 80 percent, and, after paying the deductible out of the HSA, patient payed zero. Gone when Obamacare came in
Walmart wanted Obamacare bad. Now their stores are screwed up as they try to make the numbers. However, Walmart corporate is now third gen losers without a clue about retail. They are selling some real crap their own buyers wouldnt be caught dead using