Goodwill reducing hours to avoid Obamacare costs

[Country_Gal]

I was at the Dollar Store today and recognized a young lady who works at Goodwill, where I also shop. I got to talking to her and she told me that Goodwill is reducing the hours of everyone there so they don’t have to pay insurance costs under Obamacare.

This was predicted by the opponents of this healthcare bill, and commonsense says that it would happen. But, Goodwill? They are an icon of charity and symbol of helping the less advantaged.

I’m not totally opposed to some sort of comprehensive National Health plan, but I think Obamacare is an ill-conceived one. How could these geniuses not realize that putting in a minimum hours worked requirement wouldn’t push employers to reduce hours. Companies like Walmart have been doing the same for years. Why, the hospital I work for recently had a restructuring of the nurses, and broke up full time position into part time ones, and made most of the nursing staff rebid for positions according to seniority under the union contract. Hospitals across America are pulling all kinds of shenanigans to reduce costs in anticipation of Obamacare. Nurse/patient ratios are increasing and quality of care going down.

I don’t have all the solutions, but I think Obamacare is not a sound one.

 

[LisaA]

I was at the Dollar Store today and recognized a young lady who works at Goodwill, where I also shop. I got to talking to her and she told me that Goodwill is reducing the hours of everyone there so they don’t have to pay insurance costs under Obamacare.

This was predicted by the opponents of this healthcare bill, and commonsense says that it would happen. But, Goodwill? They are an icon of charity and symbol of helping the less advantaged.

I’m not totally opposed to some sort of comprehensive National Health plan, but I think Obamacare is an ill-conceived one. How could these geniuses not realize that putting in a minimum hours worked requirement wouldn’t push employers to reduce hours. Companies like Walmart have been doing the same for years. Why, the hospital I work for recently had a restructuring of the nurses, and broke up full time position into part time ones, and made most of the nursing staff rebid for positions according to seniority under the union contract. Hospitals across America are pulling all kinds of shenanigans to reduce costs in anticipation of Obamacare. Nurse/patient ratios are increasing and quality of care going down.

I don’t have all the solutions, but I think Obamacare is not a sound one.

Obamacare was NEVER about getting care to more people. It was about transitioning to a single payer government paid system. It provides many additional costs without providing commensurate benefits.

Obamacare was a healthcare plan conceived by LAWYERS not medical providers, hospital administrators or public health professionals. It had nothing to do with medical care.

There were many alternatives to addressing the two concerns, access to care and cost. Instead everything about Obamacare INCREASED costs and has DECREASED access to care. Doctors are retiring, taking cash only, or going to work for hospitals which means you will NOT be able to keep your doctor.

How ironic that UNIONS that helped shove this monstrosity down our throats are now HOWLING because their members’ hours are being cut back.

Look EVERYONE wants sick people to get good care…even we evil Republicans want people to have access to good healthcare. But Obamacare is the complete antithesis of what was claimed.

REPEAL IT NOW
Lisa

 

[DeniseNY]

Obamacare was NEVER about getting care to more people. It was about transitioning to a single payer government paid system. It provides many additional costs without providing commensurate benefits.

Obamacare was a healthcare plan conceived by LAWYERS not medical providers, hospital administrators or public health professionals. It had nothing to do with medical care.

There were many alternatives to addressing the two concerns, access to care and cost. Instead everything about Obamacare INCREASED costs and has DECREASED access to care. Doctors are retiring, taking cash only, or going to work for hospitals which means you will NOT be able to keep your doctor.

How ironic that UNIONS that helped shove this monstrosity down our throats are now HOWLING because their members’ hours are being cut back.

Look EVERYONE wants sick people to get good care…even we evil Republicans want people to have access to good healthcare. But Obamacare is the complete antithesis of what was claimed.

REPEAL IT NOW
Lisa

 

[Country_Gal]

Best system in Europe, I’ve heard, is that of the Swiss. It’s comprehensive and logical. We need change, but Obamacare is a hodgepodge of various special interests, trying to solve a problem by creating a bigger one.

 

[LisaA]

Best system in Europe, I’ve heard, is that of the Swiss. It’s comprehensive and logical. We need change, but Obamacare is a hodgepodge of various special interests, trying to solve a problem by creating a bigger one.

Realize that a small and very homogeneous country is a LOT easier to manage with respect to any national policy. America is HUGE geographically, very diverse, with a variety of ethnic, racial, and religious groups. Think about it, a program for healthcare that would work for Mormons who don’t smoke or drink, who tend to a healthy lifestyle and strong family, would not make sense for inner city youth. It’s INSANE to think a one size fits all policy with specific requirements to pander to various interest groups (think FemiNutz the shrill anti life harridans demanding abortion on the taxpayer dime) will work.

You cannot “import” something that works for a small country where people are far more similar to America. Just as my orthodontist told me if he moved to Iceland he’d go broke. Because of the small gene pool, the people have great teeth. In America with generations of big toothed married to small jawed persons, well his future is assured.

Obamacare was/is and will be a nightmare…ooh didn’t mean to write a poem. It was ill conceived, poorly written, overly complex and ignored the actual problems.

Lisa
PS I work in this field that’s why knowing Obamacare means HATING Obamacare

 

[Country_Gal]

You’ve got a good point, LisaA, about the differences between Switzerland and the U.S… As I say, I don’t have a solution, but working in the medical field, I know the problem is huge.

 

[LisaA]

You’ve got a good point, LisaA, about the differences between Switzerland and the U.S… As I say, I don’t have a solution, but working in the medical field, I know the problem is huge.

I don’t have any problem looking at other systems and seeing what works or better yet look at what has worked in various states. I recall during the debate there were a number of Doctors in the House and they made several proposals that sounded like they had some potential to improve patient outcomes in a responsible and economic fashion. Unfortunately they were blown off by POTUS.

Just an example, one of my docs retired and wanted to volunteer at a low income clinic. He found that he still had to pay for malpractice insurance to offer free services! Even a part time limited practice policy was over $8000 a year! So he had to step back and give up volunteering due to the out of pocket cost. I think we can get creative and find solutions but I truly don’t think they WANTED solutions, just more centralization and control. Ugh…

Lisa

 

[Country_Gal]

Litigation concerns are a huge economic burden on the American medical system.

 

[Sheeniac]

Just an example, one of my docs retired and wanted to volunteer at a low income clinic. He found that he still had to pay for malpractice insurance to offer free services! Even a part time limited practice policy was over $8000 a year! So he had to step back and give up volunteering due to the out of pocket cost. I think we can get creative and find solutions but I truly don’t think they WANTED solutions, just more centralization and control. Ugh…

Lisa

One thing I’ve always felt unjust was that services are not a deductible expense. If a doctor gives charitable care, he can deduct the cost of materials (bandaid, etc) but not their time. Given that they are selling their knowledge and time, I think this should be a deductible expense and charitable health care would soar.

Would there be cheaters? Of course, but probably no worse than we have now. (disclosure - I am not in the medical field.)

 

[LisaA]

One thing I’ve always felt unjust was that services are not a deductible expense. If a doctor gives charitable care, he can deduct the cost of materials (bandaid, etc) but not their time. Given that they are selling their knowledge and time, I think this should be a deductible expense and charitable health care would soar.

Would there be cheaters? Of course, but probably no worse than we have now. (disclosure - I am not in the medical field.)

I am not sure of the origin of this rule. Maybe it would be too difficult to determine the value of services and as you said people might cheat. However the reality is that people cheat in many endeavors and if we were able to solve some of the problems by donated services then it seems like a greater good would result.

I know of many doctors and nurses who do donate their time, but often for foreign missions rather than at a local low income clinic. If we could come up with a standard rate for various services and a method to document, it seems like more donations of valuable services would occur.

Lisa

 

[markomalley]

I am not sure of the origin of this rule. Maybe it would be too difficult to determine the value of services and as you said people might cheat. However the reality is that people cheat in many endeavors and if we were able to solve some of the problems by donated services then it seems like a greater good would result.

I know of many doctors and nurses who do donate their time, but often for foreign missions rather than at a local low income clinic. If we could come up with a standard rate for various services and a method to document, it seems like more donations of valuable services would occur.

Lisa

There are a couple of issues:

1. As you say, it would be difficult to price out.
2. Gifts to private individuals are not deductible. Donations to tax deductible organizations (501c3) are. If a doctor sees an indigent patient, that would be considered a gift to that particular patient. If a doctor went through some intermediary (a 501c3), then you have the first point.
3. Having said that, though, there might be a way to donate actual material or accountable expenses (for example, travel expenses, medical supplies, etc), but there’s not even a way to deduct employee salaries for such an effort to my knowledge.

The tragedy is that this is something that could easily be corrected by Congress if they so desired. They don’t.

 

[LisaA]

There are a couple of issues:

1. As you say, it would be difficult to price out.
2. Gifts to private individuals are not deductible. Donations to tax deductible organizations (501c3) are. If a doctor sees an indigent patient, that would be considered a gift to that particular patient. If a doctor went through some intermediary (a 501c3), then you have the first point.
3. Having said that, though, there might be a way to donate actual material or accountable expenses (for example, travel expenses, medical supplies, etc), but there’s not even a way to deduct employee salaries for such an effort to my knowledge.

The tragedy is that this is something that could easily be corrected by Congress if they so desired. They don’t.

I agree there is no way to deduct services under the current rules. But as you said, they could enact something. For example working X hours in a low income clinic provides a designated value of Y. I know that there is a rate at which volunteer services are valued when an organization is reporting the amount of services donated. My community organization does this, asking our volunteers for the hours they donated and at the end of the year we report the value of these services. I think the rate is about $20 per hour so when our small organization has $5000 in services to report it not only gives the volunteers a feeling of making a real contribution but it gets other people involved.

And I don’t mean to suggest all volunteers be able to value and deduct their services but if something critical like medical care is needed and you have willing volunteers who don’t want to incur expenses to volunteer it could be carved out in order to address the need.

I think long story short, Obamacare was never intended to actually solve the problem of the uninsured, the high costs and difficulty in accessing services. Had it been so, the bureaucratic morass they created that adds costs (advertising? electronic records? mandates?) but doesn’t actually insure or care for a single patient. Worse yet we are seeing the most vulnerable workers in low wage jobs having their already meager take home pay reduced to avoid the Obamacare requirements.

BRILLIANT Nancy! What’s your next stupid idea?

Lisa