Yesterday I posted about an IT firm cutting hours as a result of the economic conditions ahead.
Hours were going to be cut. Instead of a 5-day work week the schedule would now be built around a 4-day work week.
My suspicion is that the firm is targeting a work week that comes in under 30 hours a week.
Well, there is a company that is making no bones about it:
A fast-food chain is slashing employee hours so franchise owners don’t have to pay health benefits. Around 100 local Wendy’s workers have learned their hours are being cut. A spokesperson says a new health care law is to blame.
The penalty for failure to offer insurance is $2,000 per employee. In this case, $200,000 is a lot of money:
The company has announced that all non-management positions will have their hours reduced to 28 a week. Gary Burdette, Vice President of Operations for the local franchise, says the cuts are coming because the new Affordable Health Care Act requires employers to offer health insurance to employees working 32-38 hours a week. Under the current law they are not considered full time and that as a small business owner, he can’t afford to stay in operation and pay for everyone’s health insurance.
The irony, of course, is that fast food chains typically employ the younger worker. Folks who might be entering the job market for the first time and are learning valuable work skills. Skills that they may not otherwise acquire. And the reason they are being impacted is a law that attempts to help provide medical care to the population. Well, these kids are the healthiest segment OF that population.
What we need to do with health insurance is follow Germany’s example: end profits for insurance companies who offer it. It works. Insurance companies do have incentives to gain more customers, and can profit by offering supplemental insurance that goes beyond the minimums required. In Germany you don’t have to wait for care any more than in the US, their system is top notch, everyone is insured and there are no medical cost induced bankruptcies that destroy families. It can’t happen here because our insurance companies will buy politicians to make sure they protect their profits. It worked there because after the war such a thing could be implemented. I know that may go against ideological views of how markets should work, but ideologies are always stifling. Practically it does work. I wish we’d learn from it.
What we need to do with health insurance is follow Germany’s example
I’m curious as to the left’s love of trying to push America to the European socialistic state. America is significantly stronger, freer and “better” than those states.
end profits for insurance companies who offer it.
*eye roll*
In Germany you don’t have to wait for care any more than in the US, their system is top notch, everyone is insured and there are no medical cost induced bankruptcies that destroy families.
I’ll try to find the data.
Why is employer supplied health insurance an all or nothing deal? If I order half a submarine sandwich for lunch, I pay for half. If an employee works half as long as full time workers, shouldn’t that part time worker be entitled to half the insurance?
I am not a fan of the health insurance mandate, but if this country is going to require health insurance for all, then we at least need to prevent businesses and individuals from weaseling out of paying their share of the costs.
Why is employer supplied health insurance an all or nothing deal? If I order half a submarine sandwich for lunch, I pay for half. If an employee works half as long as full time workers, shouldn’t that part time worker be entitled to half the insurance?
So, in theory, I don’t think that an employee should be “entitled” in the first place.
In practice, the law doesn’t stipulate that.
Pino, you’re too into ideology here. It’s an illusion. The free market works in some cases, doesn’t in others. The German system works better than ours. They have problems too – every system does. But compared to ours, their system functions well. That’s the facts on the ground. Don’t let ideology cause you not to see them
The free market works in some cases, doesn’t in others.
We keep coming back to this. We must be talking past each other.
When I say the market works, I mean across time and population. I certainly don’t mean that people don’t fail. Or that people don’t take advantage of other people. Clearly businesses fail and people lose their money. And obviously there are people that break laws and steal money or knowledge.
But I’m talking about the advancements that the market produces. New products, higher quality and cheaper prices. I talk about market interference when we, say, regulate milk prices in some scheme to make milk affordable for poor people. Or when we force people to sell insurance at a price that is artificial.
I mean even the words you use are silly – European “socialist state”? Bullfeathers. Angela Merkel is a conservative. You’re reading this through a weird ideological narrative. Germany is a capitalist state, a state with a social market economy. There is no “socialist state.” That’s part of an ideological fiction.
I mean even the words you use are silly – European “socialist state”?
The term has stopped meaning what it was used as. The “Socialist State” now refers to that form of government that has very high taxes and government programs that take care of the citizens. Programs such as free public education from age 1 to college, free health care, generous unemployment programs and then generous retirement programs.
Think Denmark, France and Greece.
If you have a different name for that I’ll use it.