McDonalds Threatens to End Health Care

[Crabcake Johnny]

The movie John Q's premise is his hours were reduced which kicked him out of the company's major med and onto a mini-med. His son then needed a heart transplant but they hit their plan's max.

 

[somarco]

no COBRA since that's just the continuation of the group plan. I assume they'd have state options. Somarco?

If group plan cancels, no COBRA. But mini-meds aren't part of COBRA any way.

I imagine that these are corp. stores not indy owned.

I suppose there may be corp stores, but most are franchises. One of the largest franchisee's (Litton) used to be based in Atlanta.

If I am a CEO of an overseas organization why would I even think of entering the US market if I am forced to provide insurance for all employees or even pay a fine?

Store owners in Socialist Europe (France, Italy, Germany, etc) have to provide health insurance usually via the VAT.

Bigger issue is Washington trying to punish US corps that have operations overseas. If they persist in pushing through punitive tax legislation that is anti-capitalism they will kill even more jobs here as US based corps will close down the US operation and move somewhere else.

For some incredibly stupid reason the folks in DC think everything revolves around them.

Not so.

I wonder how much more Le Big Mac will cost once they are having to pay higher premiums for their employees.

My daughter was in France & Italy last summer. She is not a burger eater, but she did say an egg McMuffin was something like $6 due to the VAT.

Coffee was extra . . .

 

[YouGotMyMoney]

And that's for fake food!

I wonder if real food is more expensive than fast food in Europe like it is here in the good ol' US of A.

 

[Post Quartermaster]

My daughter was in France & Italy last summer. She is not a burger eater, but she did say an egg McMuffin was something like $6 due to the VAT.

Coffee was extra . . .

VAT plus the fact that 1 EURO was worth about 1.4-1.5 US dollars

 

[AllenChicago]

"If you like the plan you have, you can keep it"

Sharp Repub and Tea-Party candidates will be able to use this well-known Presidential promise to drive at least a small steak (stake?) into the heart of health insurance reform and also their opposition. They now have the McDonald's story. A few more well-known companies joining McDonalds will help seal HCR's fate.
-AC

 

[Norwayguy]

You beat me to it!

And that 10k plan is $32 a week.

I don't disagree that these mini-med plans don't provide the type of coverage these people really need...But the question is where they on the plans because thats all they could get or that they just have know clue what they have...

And this might be good press for Obamacare but what about when another corporation decides to just dump their plan and this time its middle class families that have a true group plan that are now SOL.

 

[somarco]

I wonder if real food is more expensive than fast food in Europe

My wife joined her for the Italy leg, and they said wine was $3 - $4 per bottle so you be the judge.

Neither of them have discerning palate's when it comes to wine but they do know they don't like jug wine, wine that comes in a box or from Trader Joe's.

VAT plus the fact that 1 EURO was worth about 1.4-1.5 US dollars

Don't recall the exchange rate when they were there, but they did stay in a very nice resort at Elba Island for about $120/night US.

A few more well-known companies joining McDonalds will help seal HCR's fate.

It started early . . .

Even before President Obama signed the bill on Tuesday, Caterpillar said it would cost the company at least $100 million more in the first year alone. Medical device maker Medtronic warned that new taxes on its products could force it to lay off a thousand workers. Now Verizon joins the roll of businesses staring at adverse consequences.

In an email titled "President Obama Signs Health Care Legislation" sent to all employees Tuesday night, the telecom giant warned that "we expect that Verizon's costs will increase in the short term." While executive vice president for human resources Marc Reed wrote that "it is difficult at this point to gauge the precise impact of this legislation," and that ObamaCare does reflect some of the company's policy priorities, the message to workers was clear: Expect changes for the worse to your health benefits as the direct result of this bill, and maybe as soon as this year.

 

[medx]

We ain't seen nothing yet on health care. If this law remains in effect we will soon have nothing but government provided healthcare.

Quoted for truth.

American Seniors

 

[Dave020]

The movie John Q's premise is his hours were reduced which kicked him out of the company's major med and onto a mini-med. His son then needed a heart transplant but they hit their plan's max.

He gets reduced hours and moved from the PPO to the HMO plan. He has major medical coverage, but the medical group administrator (Anne Heche) is bean counting (typical of HMOs when you need REAL medicine that costs REAL money). There is a scene in the movie where his boss explains that he got bumped to the HMO because his hours were reduced.

Good moment to review HMOs. HMO contracts vary between medical groups and insurers. Some contracts only require the med group to handle lower level benefits like preventive/office visits/checkups/etc. for the capitation fee. Some contracts allow med group to handle everything up to and sometimes including inpatient/outpatient services and surgeries. They get a higher capitation fee for taking on more patient responsibility.

So, when the insurer is paying for major services under an HMO contract, the patient is probably more likely to get access to that service. When the med group is paying there may be a "problem" which could create rationing.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

Off on a bit of a tangent, but not too much of one - few years back MD enacted a law that forced companies of a certain size to offer health care to all employees. The argument was those companies ended up costing the state millions as their uncovered employees went into the high risk pool.

It was called the Walmart Bill and required very large companies to spend 8% of its payroll on health care benefits.

After the law was implemented Walmart sued and lost, but they won on appeal:

'Wal-Mart' health care law overturned | HR Magazine | Find Articles at BNET

And BTW, what MD didn't realize at the time was there would be no "winning" this case. Had Walmart lost on appearl, take a guess at what their next move would have been...