UPS to drop 15,000 spouses from insurance; cites Obamacare

Health care is going to haunt this country for the next decade.

 

The original article suggests Obamacare is causing UPS costs for healthcare to rise so much, they can't afford to supply healthcare for spouses. My point, and based off that study, is that companies may be paying more, 4% more on average; however, it seems like they are saying "sorry we can't be decent human beings because that's too expensive and we'd rather make extra money.

 

Nah, once the baby boomers die, we'll be fine ;]

 

Which is in about 10-20 years

 

And of course this is the first time in history the next generation has a lower expected life rate than the previous. So there's that to thank as well.

 

hmm blame the right..get called on it, so you pivot away..whatever..

I know that you are not dumb enough to base your arguement on this crap from Kaiser health..first and foremost, these are figures based on PROJECTED costs IF everyone were to join the collective..but guess what? The young people that the success of this program is hinged upon, are reluctant to pay more than they should to cover the costs of their elders. No one really knows what the final costs of a policy will actually be. In a few months you willget to sign up, but even then, costs will not have been determined and policies will not be issued for months to come.

 

...plans to remove thousands of spouses from its medical plan because they are eligible for coverage elsewhere.

 

I'm curious...where did you get the idea that companies exist for some reason other than making profit?

 

This is why privatization is so scary to humans with souls: If profit is the only goal, people suffer. We wouldn't be in this problem if health care wasn't so stupidly tied to employers.

 

would you care to explain this?

 

HAHA. Wow. Hyperbole much?

 

I'll probably get some details wrong (at work and should be working), so cut me some slack:

The private sector is really good at a few things, the best of which is making money. But the way they do this makes them bad at "serving public good" because that generally costs money without direct return. Making sure every child gets an education isn't directly optimal for the private sector, for example, because the ability to pay is a barrier to some families. So, the private sector would be best at making sure the people who can pay are well-educated (competition takes care of that), but some families will never be able to beat the barrier to entry. In that respect, the private sector is ill-suited to the task (making sure everyone is educated) because it's not in their wheelhouse. One way to get around this is to have "the government" act as the surrogate customer, and purchase an education for everyone, because they have (in the closed system of the physical bounds of the country) the most buying power. You can't beat their volume, so you accept their prices.

To bring it back to health care: "health insurance for everyone" is a similar goal as "education for everyone", but there's the added wrinkle of the current situation which is where people aren't buying health care directly. The employers have been using their buying power as leverage to entice workers. Of course, unless you replace a medium-sized surrogate buyer (employers) with a large-sized surrogate buyer ("the government"), you're left with individuals with little buying power again facing barriers to entry, because private industry and competition are not good at solving the "absolutely everyone" problem, they're good solving at the "best for what you pay" problem. By compromising and keeping employers involved in the buying market for insurance without also adding a single payer option where the government acts as a buyer with superior negotiating power, the current healthcare law gives us potentially the worst of both worlds.

Now, as I understand it, the state-run markets are meant to act as surrogate buyers for individuals, but by letting states opt in or out, people in opt-out states have no buying power, and can't negotiate a good deal for themselves. And why should the insurance companies deal with small fry when their goal isn't to insure eveyone, but to make the most money? That's their purpose.

Basically, every concession made to pass the bill made the bill worse, because conservatives also don't have public good in mind; their goal is to ensure that corporations can act unfettered, without thinking about whether unfettered privatization will lead to greater public good or not.

 

Nope; corporations (if they are indeed people) are sociopathic, and often are run by real sociopaths. Fans of corporations generally have a certain lack of empathy that makes imagining concepts like greater public good impossible.

 

Well, since you put it that way...

 

I'm confused why people think UPS should cover health insurance for employees' spouses that are otherwise able to get coverage (as noted in the article) for themselves?

My work covers my kids, which is great. But, I work for a small company, and I imagine in some way, that is somehow considered/factored into my compensation.

 

You guys do realize that only effects non-union management positions right?

Fail.

 

If only there existed a mechanism with which these exploited workers could band together to increase their negotiating power!

 

My non-union supervisors are probably pissed.