UPS cuts insurance to 15,000 spouses

[BarkingGhostar]

IMHO there should be no " health insurance" Co.'s at all. the Atena's, Cigna's, ect all profit by charging as much as they possibly can then paying out as little as they can, someone's ability to see a doctor should not be a route for profit to mega-sized, greedy corporations, makes zero sense to me at all. Just charge all working people a flat fee on their paycheck and nationalize healthcare already..

This is also matched by employers essentially lying about the cost of healthcare (and retirement) in order to convey absurdly insurmountable benefits costs of their employees.

For instance, BellSouth claimed (before being acquired) that the average cost of benefits to its employees was on the order or $20-30K annually. Yet, I shopped healthcare matching exactly what was being delivered (and by the same insurance company) for $2-2.5K. If they truly wanted to leave the matter on the table I'd have been happy to half of their claim, thus reducing their employees' benefit burden by 50%.

Of course BellSouth is/was no different than many telecoms, which truly hate their employees, including their spouses and children. I remember way back in 2000-2005 time period that to add the wife would increase from monthly costs from X to 2.5X (have no children).

What good is it to have large employers with seemingly zero bargaining power at the insurance tables?

 

[sportage]

Obamacare? Not one justified reason or proof Obamacare has had will have has had anything to do with this. All Obamacare does is give those unable to afford coverage the chance of going in on insurance pools. And those poor low wage folks with no offered healthcare will now have healthcare for pennies a day. Folks with pre existing can now get healthcare. And their kids. All Obamacare has done was to create fear in the status quo of "insurance for profit" mechanism where millions could never hope to have coverage. Now they can, and better yet, they soon WILL. No more showing up at the ER with no ability to pay. I think they call it personal responsibility. Something republicans "use" to be all for until THAT BLACK GUY proposed it. We all know whats going on here. Obamacare shoots down the pre exists, caps, rising cost and that pisses off not only the "insurance for profit" industry, but obviously a large number of bigots in congress.

 

[Engineer]

Not sure why this is news. Companies have been doing this more and more for years. A former employer of mine did this 10 years ago. They did come back 2 years later and give an option to pay $300 MORE per month for those spouses that were eligible for health insurance at their employer vs those that were not. These kind of things were in place long before anyone heard about Obama or Obamacare (which is a farce of a healthcare system anyway - but then again, our entire healthcare system is a farce).

 

[CountZero]

This is the result of having half of the government controlled by a party that believes the best way forward is for profit insurance tied to employment despite evidence to the contrary. ACA does little to address the overall cost to healthcare but as long as we keep it tied to employment and as long as we put profit as a motivation for healthcare we will surely see this trend continue until the entire system collapses.

At least ACA should increase the number of people covered even if it doesn't help much with costs.

As to the headline here, so what. HP was doing this when I joined them back when Dubya was still president. Pinning it to ACA is just cowardly.

 

[TerryMathews]

This is the result of having half of the government controlled by a party that believes the best way forward is for profit insurance tied to employment despite evidence to the contrary. ACA does little to address the overall cost to healthcare but as long as we keep it tied to employment and as long as we put profit as a motivation for healthcare we will surely see this trend continue until the entire system collapses.

At least ACA should increase the number of people covered even if it doesn't help much with costs.

As to the headline here, so what. HP was doing this when I joined them back when Dubya was still president. Pinning it to ACA is just cowardly.

Hey, look. Obamacare is a good law. You just don't understand how good it actually is.

Never mind your premiums going up, or your coverage going down.

 

[BUTCH1]

Hey, look. Obamacare is a good law. You just don't understand how good it actually is.

Never mind your premiums going up, or your coverage going down.

Why should one's access to healthcare be tied to employment?, does person A deserve good coverage and person B not just because person A works for a large corporation (or a smaller one that cares about their employee's)?. The for-profit based insurance system is totally unfair and a complete failure, we've got the highest cost per dollar of any first-world country so the Cigna's and Atena's can make huge profits for their shareholders and fat-cat CEO's. While I generally frown upon government-run programs a simple flat-tax system, (IE:, your earning a paycheck, you pay into the fund) would serve this country so much better IMHO. My last employer had a good program in place, a young man of 22 had just got hired on off the temp agency, I asked hin if he planned to get the insurance since he had a 6 month old, "why should I, he responded, if my kid gets sick I just take him to Halifax" (a state supported hospital) and he gets treatment for free. I told him flat out he's a loser for doing this crap and he can forget about ever buying a home once a mortgage lender pulls his credit report. "I send them $5 a month" he told me, ugh. A flat-tax system would eliminate these types of assholes from using resources but contributing nothing.