On Tuesday, Target Corporation announced that it will no longer provide healthcare coverage to its part-time employees. According to, the executive vice president of human resources, Jodee Kozlak, Target is actually doing the part-time employees a favor by not offering them healthcare insurance.
“The Health Insurance Marketplaces provides new options for healthcare coverage that we believe our part-time members may prefer,” Jodee wrote in a blog post on the company’s website. “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.” At this time, according to Kozlak, less than ten-percent of Target part-time employees eligible to receive benefits have enrolled in the company healthcare plan.
Target has implemented a transition program for those no longer receiving healthcare as a result of the new policy. The company will be giving a one-time cash payment of $500 to those who lose their insurance and will be providing benefit consultations for employees.
Joanne Peters a spokesperson for Human Health Services said companies have been discontinuing coverage for many years, and that now because of Obamacare, employees will have healthcare options when that occurs. Peters insists that, “Since the Affordable Care Act became law, health care costs have been slowing and premiums are increasing by the lowest rates in years.” Moreover, she asserted, “But now, unlike before, employees have the option of shopping in the Marketplace for quality, affordable coverage, where they may be able to qualify for a tax credit to help pay for the cost.”
Of course, the dropping of employee health coverage flies in the face of what the President had promised and repeated during the run up to the Obamacare rollout on October 1, that “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it.”
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