The Unaffordable Care Act

It wasn't long ago when Don Diego lectured us about irresponsible municipal leaders promising more than they could deliver with benefits to union employees. Readers should visit the "Detroit" thread for a summary. But when municipal leaders take a more responsibile path (like Mayor Emmanuel in Chicago) then Don Diego has criticism for that too....which manifests itself as delivering "inferior insurance".

I invite Don Diego to email Mayor Emmanuel a letter encouraging him to go back to the irresponsible Detroit-style Healthcare plan he criticized last month..

DonDiego has an amazing grasp of the obvious.

Yes, a basic Obamacare policy that may run only $25 per month will not be as good as a gold-plated health insurance policy that employees contribute thousands for yearly and that a labor union negotiated for on their behalf. Alert the media.

But it will be much, much better than being uninsured.

is health insurance a right or a privilege.?

I want some insurance.

[Unintentionally Left Blank]

For the record DonDiego opines it is irresponsible for a municipal leader, or anyone , to promise more than they can deliver. Something which cannot go on forever will stop. See Detroit.

In the post to which pjstroh takes offense, DonDiego was answering hoops2's question as to why the Unions wanted an exemption from Obamacare.

DonDiego took no side on the issue of Mayor Emanuel's intention to cut health care for City employees and dump them into the Obamacare exchanges. He recognizes the sad state of many cities' finances.
DonDiego did not criticize the Mayor's plan.
What DonDiego did do was provide an example of the union members' viewpoint that they should retain their present healthcare insurance instead of being forced onto Obamacare Exchanges. He recognizes the unions want "what they earned through their Union", . . . and not a lesser plan.

DonDiego does not have a good answer. Sometimes it's not possible to satisfy both sides. And why is that? Umm, . . . maybe, . . . somebody promised more than they could deliver.

Umm, . . . pr'bly not "much, much better." And depending upon analyisis of the details, . . . like likely out-of-pocket expenses and such, . . . a $25-per-month policy might be barely better.

Thanks Obama

Trader Joe's has written up a pretty good explanation for why it is shifting its employees who don't work 30 hours a week towards the new Health Insurance Exchanges. Lots of common sense here, recognizing that some will benefit while others will not.

Thank you for writing to us. It's possible you have been misled, at least to some degree, by the headlines in some articles regarding our reasons for implementing the [Affordable Care Act] in January. We'd like to take this opportunity to clarify some facts.

For over 77% of our Crew Members there is absolutely no change to their healthcare coverage provided by Trader Joe's.

The ACA brings a new potential player into the arena for the acquisition of health care. Stated quite simply, the law is centered on providing low cost options to people who do not make a lot of money. Somewhat by definition, the law provides those people a pretty good deal for insurance ... a deal that can't be matched by us -- or any company. However, an individual employee (we call them Crew Member) is only able to receive the tax credit from the exchanges under the act if we do not offer them insurance under our company plan.

Perhaps an example will help. A Crew Member called in the other day and was quite unhappy that she was being dropped from our coverage unless she worked more hours. She is a single mom with one child who makes $18 per hour and works about 25 hours per week. We ran the numbers for her. She currently pays $166.50 per month for her coverage with Trader Joe's. Because of the tax credits under the ACA she can go to an exchange and purchase insurance that is almost identical to our plan for $69.59 per month. Accordingly, by going to the exchange she will save $1,175 each year ... and that is before counting the $500 we will give her in January.

While we understand her fear of change, at her income level this is a big benefit that we will help her achieve.

Clearly, there are others who will go to the exchanges and will be required to pay more. That is usually because they have other income and typically a spouse who had a job with no benefits and they do not qualify for the subsidies under the ACA.

One example of that we had yesterday was the male Crew Member who worked an average of 20 hours per week but had a spouse who is a contract consultant who makes more than $200,000 per year. The Crew Member worked for the medical benefits and unfortunately for them they are likely to have to pay more because of their real income. We understand how important healthcare coverage is to our Crew Members and we are pleased to be able to provide and support this program.

We do hope this information helps, and we appreciate your interest in Trader Joe's.

I want some insurance too, but I want some that actually you know pays for something. It doesn't seem right to force someone to pay premiums and then say the first $12.5 k a year is out of pocket.

" I want some insurance too, but I want some that actually you know pays for something. It doesn't seem right to force someone to pay premiums and then say the first $12.5 k a year is out of pocket."------ Welcome to "Change you can believe in".