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发帖数: 29846 | 1 Wal-Mart to End Health Insurance for Some Part-Time Employees
Cutback to Affect 30,000 Who Work Fewer Than 30 Hours a Week
By Shelly Banjo,
Updated Oct. 7, 2014 7:37 p.m. ET
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. WMT +1.38% is cutting health insurance for another
30,000 part-time workers and raising premiums for its other employees, as U
.S. corporations push to contain costs in the wake of the federal health-
care law.
Autumn is typically when U.S. companies unveil changes to employee insurance
plans. This is the first such enrollment period since employers could
assess the full financial impact of the federal health-care overhaul, and it
is a key moment as companies work to lower their spending ahead of looming
taxes on the most generous plans.
Many businesses are continuing to shift more costs to workers. Phoenix-based
technology distributor Avnet Inc., AVT +1.09% for example, is paring
back its traditional plans in favor of high-deductible options. Other
companies are reducing coverage for spouses, according to consultants at
Towers Watson & Co.
Still others are going further, ending their traditional coverage for
employees who will instead get a fixed sum of money to buy their own
insurance on private exchanges. Aon AON -2.46% PLC’s Aon Hewitt is
set to announce that enrollment in its exchange will grow to around 850,000
workers and dependents next year, as another 15 employers sign up.
Several facets of the health-care overhaul are driving concerns about costs:
one is the coming tax on so-called Cadillac plans, which carry high
premiums and offer rich benefits, and another is the individual mandate that
requires most workers to obtain coverage or else face a penalty.
For Wal-Mart, that push from the individual mandate contributed to an influx
of workers who signed up for coverage, jacking up costs. Wal-Mart, the
country’s largest private employer, with about 1.4 million employees,
forecasts that its health-care costs will rise by $500 million more than it
had expected in the year ending Jan. 31, 2015.
“We can’t take our eyes off costs,” said Sally Welborn, senior vice
president of global benefits at Wal-Mart. Ms. Welborn declined to say how
much Wal-Mart will save from the plan changes.
Private-sector employers spent $446 billion on health insurance premiums in
2012, the most recent year for which the federal Medicare agency has
published figures, and they were expected to pay $483 billion this year, up
22% from 2007. Households spent $284 billion on premiums in 2012. They are
expected to spend slightly less this year to $282 billion, but it is still
up 20% from 2007.
Under the Affordable Care Act, large companies beginning in 2015 must offer
coverage to most employees working 30 hours a week or more or pay a penalty
starting at around $2,000 per worker. Most individuals, meanwhile, must show
that they have health insurance or pay an individual penalty.
Critics of the law have been concerned that companies would drop coverage
and force workers onto government exchanges.
Several other retailers already have moved away from providing health
insurance to part-time workers. Target Corp. TGT +1.87% earlier this
year said it would stop offering such benefits, citing options available
through public exchanges. Home Depot Inc. HD +1.61% last year ended
health-care coverage for almost 20,000 part-time workers, while United
Parcel Service Inc. UPS +1.52% cut coverage for workers’ spouses who
had access to insurance through their own employers.
Not all companies are gravitating toward exchanges, though. Appliance-maker
Whirlpool Corp. WHR +0.92% considered shifting its employees to public
exchanges this year, despite the potential for financial penalties.
Whirlpool calculated that the move would save millions of dollars, but
ultimately decided against it for nonfinancial reasons, according to Ed Mohr
, a human-resources executive at Whirlpool.
Twenty-four percent of all companies that provide health benefits offer them
to part-time workers, according to a 2014 study by the Kaiser Family
Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust, down from 25% last
year.
Wal-Mart, which at one point offered health-care coverage to all part-timers
, has been paring back such coverage in recent years. In 2011, it cut
coverage for new employees who worked fewer than 24 hours a week. The
following year, it stopped insuring new workers who worked fewer than 30
hours a week.
On Tuesday, Wal-Mart said it would drop coverage beginning Jan. 1 for
existing workers who were grandfathered into the company’s health plan. Now
, only those part-timers working 30 to 34 hours a week will qualify for the
company’s health coverage.
Wal-Mart also is raising premiums for all workers next year. About 40% of
enrolled workers are on its least expensive and most popular plan and will
now pay $21.90 per two-week pay period, a 20% increase, starting Jan. 1.
Across all three plans, Wal-Mart said it estimates workers will pay an
additional $10 a pay period. The average Wal-Mart hourly worker earns $11.81
an hour.
“Half of my paycheck is gone before I even get the money,” said BJ
Marhefka, 49 years old, who works about 40 hours a week in the Wal-Mart
automotive department in Southport, N.C., and makes $10 an hour.
Despite the increased costs, she said she won’t drop Wal-Mart’s health-
care program because her son has asthma and has to see a doctor regularly.
She said she would cut back on other things instead.
Elsewhere, the tax on higher-priced plans, set to take effect in 2018, is
already playing into employers’ benefit decisions. A survey released in
August by the National Business Group on Health found that, to minimize the
impact of the tax, 57% of employers were planning to implement or expand
high-deductible plans, while 42% were boosting employees’ cost-sharing.
Employers with higher-cost plans are extremely concerned about the tax, said
Randall Abbott, a senior consultant at Towers Watson. FedEx Corp. FDX +2.
36% and JetBlue cited the tax when they moved their workers into high-
deductible plans.
Avnet, the technology distributor, added two new high-deductible offerings
this year, and for next year it will keep them and pare down to one
traditional plan from two. All of Avnet’s plans next year will have at
least a $1,500 deductible for a single worker, but the company will also
contribute as much as $500 to individual employees’ health-savings accounts
.
Concern about the 2018 tax “was driving it,” said MaryAnn Miller, chief
human resources officer at the company, which has around 6,000 U.S.
employees. The company had estimated that without changes, the tax would
cost it $1.4 million in 2018.
JetBlue replaced its four traditional health-care plans with two high-
deductible plans last year. With the new plans, the discount airline
operator also agreed to make fixed contributions to employees’ health-care
spending accounts with a twist. For employees who engage in healthy
activities, JetBlue will increase how much it contributes. Run a marathon,
double the contribution, said Harry Spencer, the airline’s vice president
of compensation and benefits.
Wal-Mart has retained a third-party benefits adviser to help affected
workers find coverage on public and private health exchanges or by using a
spouse or partner’s health insurance.
“We can’t predict where they will go, but we are going to help them find
affordable health care,” Ms. Welborn said.
—Stephanie Armour contributed to this article. | T*********I
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