Health Law May Offer Part-Time Workers Better Options

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Health Law May Offer Part-Time Workers Better Options

By Michelle Andrews

In January, part-time workers who have so-called "mini-med" health insurance plans with very limited benefits and annual caps on payments will begin to lose that coverage, which under the health care overhaul can’t be renewed after the beginning of the year. Many experts say it's just as well, noting that part-timers likely will have better options in January.

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When Roberta Grindle was diagnosed with colon cancer in October, she blew through the $5,000 coverage limit on her mini-med plan almost immediately. Grindle, 62, worked 16 hours a week at a big box store near her home in Sebring, Fla., and paid $32 every two weeks for the store’s plan...She says she doesn’t know how she’ll pay for her medical care, but it’s certainly not going to be with the coverage she had..."I have no idea what exactly it covered, but clearly not much of anything," she says. "I would have been better off without it."

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Many part-time workers will have more options for better coverage starting in January. If their employer doesn’t offer a health plan, they can shop for insurance on the online marketplaces, and subsidies will be available to those with incomes up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level ($45,960 for an individual in 2013)...part-timers may be eligible for Medicaid if they live in a state that’s expanding coverage to adults with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level ($15,856 for an individual in 2013). The health law requirement was made optional following a Supreme Court challenge; half of the states have so far opted to expand eligibility...for Grindle, Medicaid isn't likely an option since Florida hasn’t expanded coverage. She and her husband, who’s 67 and on Medicare, have a combined income of $2,270 each month, about 175 percent of the federal poverty level of $15,510 for a couple in 2013.

With a premium subsidy, Grindle can buy a silver plan on the exchange for about $118 a month, according to Laurel Lucia, a policy analyst at the University of California Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education. Though more expensive than the roughly $70 a month Grindle paid for her mini-med plan, "the coverage would definitely be better than the mini-med they had," says Lucia.

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http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2013/November/26/Michelle-Andrews-health-law-parttime-workers.aspx

Under Obamacare, Disney World Will Promote Its Part-Time Workers To Full-Time Status

By Sy Mukherjee

The happiest place on earth just got a little happier.

Walt Disney Co. announced on Wednesday that it is offering full-time employment to the 427 part-time employees at its Disney World theme park in Orlando, Florida who work at least 30 hours per week — the threshold at which the Affordable Care Act requires large employers with 50 or more workers to offer basic health benefits to employees or risk paying a $2,000 per employee fine after the first 30 workers.

Disney already offers a level of health coverage that is acceptable under Obamacare to its full-time employees. But part-time workers, including those who work at the 30-hour cutoff set by the health law, receive more limited benefits. Instead of rolling back these workers’ hours to avoid expanding their health coverage, Disney is choosing to promote them to full-time status.

“Disney wants to be proactive,” said Ed Chambers, president of the Service Trades Council union that represents tens of thousands of Orlando Disney employees, in an interview with Bloomberg News. “Disney is way out in front on this.”

That’s a striking departure from some retail and service sector firms that have used Obamacare’s employee coverage requirement as an excuse to cut hours and benefits. While the vast majority of firms are not engaging in such tactics, high-profile stories about companies that do adopt that approach tend to dominate media coverage...Disney’s decision tracks with a recent survey of chief financial officers at large American firms finding that American companies actually intend to increase their number of full-time employees by almost 2 percent over the next year, despite repeated claims by Obamacare critics that the reform law will create a part-time economy, discourage hiring, or encourage employers to roll back workers’ hours to avoid Obamacare.

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http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/02/2716951/disney-world-obamacare-promote-full-time/

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