Thanks Home Depot

Title: Part-Timers Losing Health Insurance May Want To Thank Their Companies

News source: Yahoo News

Article date: Fri, Sep 20, 2013 5:03 PM EDT

Author of article: Rick Newman

Summary:  Home Depot (HD) and Trader Joe’s have decided to stop offering health insurance for part-time employees, moving them over to Obamacare instead.

Issue: Employees who are having their health care dropped so that they can get ObamaCare are worried. But their employer’s choice could actually save them money.

·      Argument: It’s an excuse to drop their employee’s health care vs. they are actually looking out for their employees.

Supporting evidence:

·      “A single parent with three kids and an annual income of $25,000, for instance, could get an $8,800 insurance plan for a total out-of-pocket cost of $500 per year. Subsidies, in other words, cover 94% of the cost. Try to beat that on part-time pay.

·      “You only qualify for such deals if you’re not able to get coverage through your employer. So if you’re a part-timer whose company canceled your watered-down insurance coverage, it may have actually done you a favor.”

Claims: Obamacare was designed to make decent health insurance affordable for people who otherwise can’t afford it, the program subsidizes the cost of insurance based on your income, with the largest subsidies going to those with the lowest incomes.

Analysis: It seems clear to me that, they are being nice. Companies like Home Depot and Trader Joe’s have a really good reputation for employee benefits even for their many half time employees. It seems to me that they wouldn’t just flip in a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde way and just become evil and not want the best for their employees. It seems like they are really trying to help and doing them a favor by dropping them. According to the statistics and data if they weren’t dropped they would either pay a lot more or get a lot less benefits. Not to mention they’ve have to actually understand what kind of insurance they want while choosing from the many coverage options. This is a good thing.

Relate to economic concepts: Obamacare will economically improve people’s lives on a personal level.  As someone who didn’t have health insurance for year up until this year I know that it’s always in the back of your mind that if something bad happened to you – you wouldn’t have that much money to fix it. On an economic level people will be paying less for insurance (or getting insurance for the first time) but when people pay less they have extra money. This extra money will go towards other things and help the economy grow. We’re going to have a healthier economy because of Obamacare, not to mention healthier people.