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McDonald's could drop health coverage for 30k employees

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HumblePie said:
It is lame because of the following. Either the situation is the health insurance being provided is coming from McD's (ie they are actually providing the insurance and not some third party company) and they are in complete control of the costs of overhead. Or they are using a third party company that has been enjoying the ride of pretending to have higher overhead costs and passing that on to McD's because of the "tracking complications" they are having.

The scenario is either one or the other. If the case is the second scenario, McD's needs to find an insurance company that will adhere to the new laws and either learn to be more efficient with tracking or not be raking more off the top in profit than what they are claiming.

If the scenario is the first, then McD is being a lame excuse because they are already tracking who is working and who is not for them for payroll and there would be no additional costs incurred for this reason when providing health insurance.

Now that is why I call the excuse lame.
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I don't know what else to say. The reality of how health insurance works is reality. Simply wanting it to be cheaper, or insisting that the insurer must be charging too much, doesn't change the facts. A low-max plan in a high turnover environment makes it very hard to hit an 80% or 85% payout.

Anyone who wants to start an insurance company and can process claims and enrollments for less than the big boys are charging should go for it and become a billionaire. That opportunity is there, it's probably the number one business opportunity in the world right now from a potential reward standpoint.

It doesn't matter anyway, as I don't think McDs will drop the insurance. They will find a way to make it work although it probably won't be appealing to the employees.
 
HumblePie said:
I still don't understand the McD's outrage exactly.

The bill states that of the premiums paid, 80% has to go to claims. So they are collecting X amount of money from Y amount of employees over Z amount of time. There is going to be a collective total of cash available for when one of these employees needs healthcare. The bill is stipulating that of all that cash collected thus far, at least 80% most be used for medical claims. This leaves 20% for overhead and profit.

The numbers of how much is collected and annual caps do not matter. The formula of whether each person is paying $14, $32, or even $2000 a year does not matter. Unless there is something I am completely missing, I see no reason why the mini-meds insurance would be more affected than any other insurance plan currently in existence. This speaks to me of McD's getting pissed they are losing a lot of profit on insuring 16 year olds who rarely if ever make claims and like collecting way more than 20% profit.
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It's quite simple: as the turnover rate of employees goes up, so does the administration cost. McDonald's has an extraordinarily high rate of employee turnover. Additionally, as the number of claims goes up, so do the administration costs. "Mini-med" plans are designed to cover small expenses like wellness checkups. These tend to occur in large numbers. That increases administration cost. Traditional plans still cover these transactions but also cover major medical. Major medical can easily rack up >$100,000 per claim. That skews the claim:administration ratio considerably, something that a mini-med plan cannot do.
 
So either:
1. Insurer wants to keep making high profits off this group, possibly with kickbacks to McD
or:
2. Insurer is inept and spends >20% of revenue on administration

Cynicism leads me to believe 1. is more likely, and this is a threat designed to keep the cash rolling in.
 
I like the experts in here telling us all about how it really isn't expensive to be a small health insurer.

Finding any excuse possible to support government thuggery against business. To twist it around as if it is not the government ITSELF that is responsible for shutting down smaller health insurers and forcing everyone closer to its own solution.
 
Originally Posted by GoPackGo
And now they will have none.

QUOTE=BlahBlahYouToo;30532030]who do they thank for that?[/QUOTE]

110% Bush and the Republicans
 
dmcowen674 said:
110% Bush and the Republicans
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Rename yourself "Republicansdidit" and save yourself the trouble of typing.

So what's the method of blame this time, that they blocked universal (government-owned) health care and so it is their fault the government is not already the health insurer for these employees?

I'd just like to know the line you used to connect the dots.
 
Marlin1975 said:
Yep as HumblePie has noticed, they are mad they will not make as much money off its employees.

A easy fix is to reduce the rates. That way they hit the 80%.

But again that would cut into them making money off their own employees.
Click to expand...

Congratulations? You just described every employer / employee relationship in this country? Virtually all employees exist to make the employer money.
 
Gonad the Barbarian said:
So the initial article was just another example of a Murdoch media outlet's fair and balanced reporting.
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Wall Street Journal is who first reported it based off an internal memo. The more likely outcome is Obama's goons threatened to take over McDonalds and bankrupt them if they didn't shut their mouth about how the healtcare law was harming them and their employees.
 
boomerang said:
Well hell, let's just kill off all these corporations and we can all work for the government. Why do we need these stepping stone jobs anyway? Let the government pay for a Masters degree for everyone, and employ everyone at the exact same wage. Now that's fairness.
Click to expand...


Check your sarcasm meter, I was doing a TFP impression, almost everyone knows this
 
spidey07 said:
The more likely outcome is Obama's goons threatened to take over McDonalds and bankrupt them if they didn't shut their mouth about how the healtcare law was harming them and their employees.
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Man, you've completely fucking lost it, seriously.
 
HumblePie said:
It is lame because of the following. Either the situation is the health insurance being provided is coming from McD's (ie they are actually providing the insurance and not some third party company) and they are in complete control of the costs of overhead. Or they are using a third party company that has been enjoying the ride of pretending to have higher overhead costs and passing that on to McD's because of the "tracking complications" they are having.

The scenario is either one or the other. If the case is the second scenario, McD's needs to find an insurance company that will adhere to the new laws and either learn to be more efficient with tracking or not be raking more off the top in profit than what they are claiming.

If the scenario is the first, then McD is being a lame excuse because they are already tracking who is working and who is not for them for payroll and there would be no additional costs incurred for this reason when providing health insurance.

Now that is why I call the excuse lame.
Click to expand...
Your argument from incredulity is very convincing.
 
Engineer said:
Man, you've completely fucking lost it, seriously.
Click to expand...

We've already had the department of health and human services head threaten insurance companies that say anything bad about the law, what makes you think that kind of strong arm tactics isn't being applied here and coming from the top down?

It's not that much of a leap to see how obama's goons could be involved here. Chicago politics at work.
 
spidey07 said:
We've already had the department of health and human services head threaten insurance companies that say anything bad about the law, what makes you think that kind of strong arm tactics isn't being applied here and coming from the top down?

It's not that much of a leap to see how obama's goons could be involved here. Chicago politics at work.
Click to expand...

Again, see my statement. If you think that Obama and his "goons" can "take over McDonalds and bankrupt them", you need help.
 
nonlnear said:
Your argument from incredulity is very convincing.
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I'm an IT guy and can probably count more written databases I have done than most people around here can count the number of times they've brushed their teeth. I know people right now working for USAA and former employees that currently work with me. I know the administrative costs for "tracking" high turn over employees is a load of bunk. There could be another valid reason, but seriously I don't see that reason unless everything is being tracked by hand.

There may well be other reasons for their higher administrative costs, but the reason given is one I'm calling bullshit on as I am speaking from professional experience on this matter.


EDIT*
Thanks to the link above I can see that the original OP was full of the bullshit I was smelling. McD may have concerns over what the regulation entails, but unless they are going to be nothing but greedy a-holes, they are going to comply with the law by making any adjustments needed.
 
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