I have more than one client considering this course of action. If you are an employer who currently does not contribute toward dependent healthcare costs, you are in compliance but because of yet a other perversion in PPACA, you would preclude a spouse from getting government subsidies if you offer an "affordable plan" (costing less than 9.5% of w-2 wages for the cost of single coverage) to your employee. This is true even though you may not subsidize one penny of the dependent cost thereby making that dependent cost unaffordable by any rational standard.
One way around this is to make spouses ineligible for your plan (also permitted by PPACA). In so doing you actually protect that spouse's ability to access ObamaCare subsidy dollars and further promote the statist's goal of dependency upon government for healthcare.
Instead of the employer contributing to the cost of a family's healthcare expenses, the employer can shift that burden over to the taxpayer with respect to spousal coverage. UPS has figured this out. Many more will.
This is from the Atlanta Business Chronicle
This is from the Atlanta Business Chronicle
... Rising medical costs, “combined with the costs associated with the Affordable Care Act, have made it increasingly difficult to continue providing the same level of health care benefits to our employees at an affordable cost,” UPS said in a memo to employees.
According to Kaiser, UPS told white-collar workers two months ago that 15,000 working spouses eligible for coverage by their own employers would be excluded from the UPS plan in 2014.
UPS expects the move, which applies to non-union U.S. workers only, to save about $60 million a year, company spokesman Andy McGowan said.
The health law requires large employers to cover employees and dependent children, but not spouses or domestic partners, Kaiser adds.
Kaiser said the Obama administration would not respond directly to UPS' statements, but said that employer coverage increased when Massachusetts implemented its own version of the health overhaul.
"The health care law will make health insurance more affordable, strengthen small businesses and make it easier for employers to provide coverage to their workers," said Joanne Peters, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Earlier this week, Forever 21 Inc. became the latest national company to cut employee hours to counter the impact of Obamacare, according to Policymic.com. ...
