Erick Erickson:
Republicans in the United States House of Representatives and Senate claim they will vote to defund Obamacare, but they won’t actually fight for it. What they want to fight for is just a delay of the individual mandate. That’s it. But there is so much more that is so much more onerous about Obamacare. Delta Airlines, in a letter it prepared back in June, outlined just how onerous Obamacare would be to the airline.
In the past twenty-four hours, during my radio show in Atlanta, numerous Delta employees called in to tell me Delta is now telling its employees their healthcare will be radically changed because of Obamacare. A handful of them said the June 2013 letter from Delta to the Obama Administration is being circulated among employees.
The letter is stunning. According to Delta, in 2014 Obamacare will cost the company at least $38 million in direct costs and that is only the beginning. With added medical inflation, Delta claims “the cost of providing health care to our employees will increase by nearly $100,000,000 next year.” A $100 million increase thanks in large part to Obamacare and ancillary cost increases derived therefrom. Yes, I have the letter. From the letter:
The ACA requires large employers to pay an annual fee of $63 per covered participant in 2014. For Delta’s roughly 160,000 enrolled active and retired employees and their family members, this represents more than $10 million added to the cost of providing health care next year. As we discussed, this fee, which is meant to help stabilize the state exchanges as they get started, provides absolutely zero direct benefit to our participants. It is, essentially, a direct subsidy from us and our employees to those who participate in the exchanges.
Delta also notes that because adults can be left on their parents’ insurance until they are 18, Delta is already incurring an additional $14 million per year. The company notes that under Obamacare, “We are required to charge the same for these children as we do for any other children covered by our plan. However, our experience shows that, on average, these children are consuming considerably more health care than other children we cover.”
Because of the individual mandate, Delta estimates more of its employees coming onto insurance who have otherwise declined it. That will increase their costs $14 million too. The company notes that it does not plan to reduce hours for workers to under thirty hours, but is aware that other employers will.
UPS is dropping married employees spouses from their medical insurance.
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/morning_call/2013/08/ups-to-drop-15000-spouses-from.html
Obama lied, people will die.
@Smorgasbord:
Now, let’s complete the sentence. UPS is dropping married employees spouses from their medical insurance who can obtain insurance from their own job.
So wait…wasn’t obamacare supposed to DECREASE health insurance costs? So why are all these businesses having to cut employee hours because of increased obamacare costs? Why is UPS having to cut spouses with other potential insurance coverage, if obamacare is supposed to lower insurance costs? Now another company is having to tell employees the hard truth about the disaster of obamacare and the skyrocketing costs.
Anyone who supports obamacare with all this obvious evidence of malfeasance has no intellectual credibility, and not a shred of integrity. Every single one of the lies used to cram obamacare down our throats has been shown to be completely wrong.
@Ronald J. Ward:
And somehow this will be cheaper and or better for the employee? If it were not for Obamacare this change would not happen at all. What is said spouse has lousy insurance coverage at their job or loses their job? What effect will this have on the spouses employer?
By the way all is not happy in liberal land as it relates to the ACA.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/21/unions-obamacare-taft-hartley_n_3790548.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003
The problem with that is, Ron, that it de-incentivizes good, hard-working families with two breadwinners from continuing as such.
How many times have I heard people say, I only keep at my job for the extra medical coveage it gives the family?”
Loads of times.
Over many years.
See, one worker’s medical coverage pays the deductable for the other’s, thus the two-worker family incurs virtually NO MEDICAL COSTS out of pocket!
When ObamaCare takes that away, watch the numbers of Americans who COULD work, but drop out of the labor force skyrocket.
And that number is already at history-making heights now!
Take a look at these May 2013 graphics:
http://www.businessinsider.com/david-rosenberg-on-jobs-2013-5?op=1
You think they are alarming now?
Just wait until there is so little incentive to work that lots of spouses drop out who have been hanging on JUST for the children up until now!
It looks like UVA, University of Virginia has now decided to do the same thing as UPS has announced as it relates to health insurance.
There are more companies involved:
Mercer charged an extra—$100 a month to cover spouses.
Generics maker Teva and supply chain manager Intermec have spousal surcharges costing $100 a month, or $1,200 annually.
Xerox charges $1,000 for the year.
Next year, 33% of companies plan to impose a surcharge on working spouses (2014).
More firms are likely to drop spouses altogether, whether they work or not—especially when the new federal health-care exchanges open in 2014, providing an alternative for spouses left out in the cold…..included are:
Ball State,
Flowserve,
Wisconsin-based furniture company KI.
Other companies drive spouses away using other tactics, such as making spousal coverage prohibitively expensive through higher surcharges or by making reimbursement rates so low that spouses can’t afford the plans.
More at:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-your-boss-is-dumping-your-wife-2013-02-22
…and the biggest issue is that there will still be 30,000,000 people uninsured after all the increases!
@Ronald J. Ward: #3
UPS gave the following statement:
Thanks to obamacare, 7 out of every 8 new hires are temporary jobs, and Kelly Temporary Services is the nation’s number 1 hirer.
@Pete: #4
On Fox News they have had a man who walks the streets and asks people to sign petitions. The latest petition was to get rid of the Bill of Rights. He was amazed how many people sign these petitions he comes up with. When you have a school system that doesn’t teach the basics most of us grew up with, and a propaganda media that goes along with what the liberals say, I guess you can get most people to believe anything. As I have said different times, the democratic slogan is, “We don’t have to fool all of the people all of the time, just enough of them to get elected.”