According to a post on its corporate website, retail giant Target is joining the ranks of Home Depot, Trader Joe´s, and other major companies that have announced plans to stop offering health insurance coverage for part-time workers. In the case of Target, the policy will go into effect April 1. The retailer is offering $500 to employees who are losing their coverage, and telling them to find coverage through health insurance marketplaces run by states or the federal government.
The launch of Health Insurance Marketplaces provides new options for health care coverage that we believe our part-time team members may prefer. In fact, by offering them insurance, we could actually disqualify many of them from being eligible for newly available subsidies that could reduce their overall health insurance expense.
In addition, the majority of our part-time team members who have been eligible for our health insurance coverage don’t enroll. Today, less than 10 percent of our total team member population participates in our part-time plan.
Target’s vice president of human resources, Jodee Kozlak, said on the corporate blog:
“Health care reform is transforming the benefits landscape and affecting how all employers, including Target, administer health benefits coverage.“Our decision to discontinue this benefit comes after careful consideration of the impact to our stores’ part-time team members and to Target, the new options available for our part-time team, and the historically low number of team members who elected to enroll in the part-time plan.”
According to a report in the Twin Cities Pioneer Press, this is just the start:
David Martin, principal at Ahmann Martin Risk and Benefit Consulting in Edina, said Target’s decision isn’t surprising. He suspects “we’re probably going to see that more and more” among corporate employers.
Companies are now required to offer their full-time workers quality health care coverage, so, “It makes quite a bit of sense to apply your resources where you need to — and for other populations, have them be available for the subsidies and other benefits from the Affordable Care Act,” Martin said.
Obviously Target is simply dropping the plan to make Obamacare and Obama look bad, in the latter case because he is black.
