McDonald's, 29 other firms get health care coverage waivers

[shockerfan]

usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2010-10-07-healthlaw07_ST_N.htm

A few questions to those of you who support Obamacare:

1. If Obamacare is so good, why is the administration granting waivers to businesses and unions alike?
2. Is it fair that some people should be forced to comply with Obamacare regulations and some others are granted waivers?
3. Since the purpose of a waiver is to prevent the business or union from seeing an increase in costs, isn’t it fair to say the President was either lying OR he was just totally wrong when he said the new law would bring down healthcare costs?

 

[vz71]

A few questions to those of you who support Obamacare:
I don’t, but I do not believe that would disqualify my opinion.

1. If Obamacare is so good, why is the administration granting waivers to businesses and unions alike?

These waivers will keep the real problems caused by Obamacare from surfacing until the president is out of office.

1. Is it fair that some people should be forced to comply with Obamacare regulations and some others are granted waivers?

No, but I fail to see a problem with that.
I am not a big fan of ‘fair’. I prefer ‘right’ instead. Right and fair are often the same, but there is a difference.

1. Since the purpose of a waiver is to prevent the business or union from seeing an increase in costs, isn’t it fair to say the President was either lying OR he was just totally wrong when he said the new law would bring down healthcare costs?

No it isn’t fair. It is the truth.
The president was speaking falsely and he knew it.

 

[shockerfan]

No, but I fail to see a problem with that.
I am not a big fan of ‘fair’. I prefer ‘right’ instead. Right and fair are often the same, but there is a difference.
.

I like this answer. The problem to me is this: Who do you trust in government to implement “right”? If you have laws, and apply them evenly, you can have “fair”. But when you create waivers to a law, which in some cases is the right thing to do, how do you make sure it is “right”. For example, what if the waivers only went to companies who are donors to the Democratic party? (I’m not making the accusation, only using it as an example).

To me, since the party in power has been either less than truthful, or absolutely less than accurate with their claims about the benefits of Obamacare, I don’t trust them to implement “right”. Especially since they didn’t even read it before voting for it.

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

McDonalds requires cheap labor to drive its company. They provided a modicum of health care for their workers. The new health care law says that what they were previously providing was inadequate. McDonalds says: we don’t want to provide any more health care, if you hold us to the new law, we will drop their coverage entirely. The paltry wages earned by McDonalds workers would not be adjusted after dropping health care benefits so the workers could not afford a private alternative. The government would end up having to subsidize the health care costs for essentially the entirety of McDonalds workers. Therefore the government decides to allow McDonalds to continue providing poor health care benefits for the time being.

I suspect that as rates continue to rise, McDonalds, along with many other companies, will end up dropping health coverage eventually (or slashing the coverage to truly unacceptable levels) and rely on their employees to get their own from some insurance exchange.

 

[vz71]

I suspect that as rates continue to rise, McDonalds, along with many other companies, will end up dropping health coverage eventually (or slashing the coverage to truly unacceptable levels) and rely on their employees to get their own from some insurance exchange.

I suspect that as time goes on, there will be no other choices available.
This ‘insurance exchange’ you speak of will be a single entity…and it will be run in part by the IRS.

 

[bbarrick8383]

It’s another liberal program like SS, that if it were so great, they would have had no problem making it voluntary.

But no, in order for it to work we must be forced to participate.

Get out of my life liberals, you have no right to be here.

And they are supposed to be the “smart” ones.

 

[gamewell45]

McDonalds requires cheap labor to drive its company. They provided a modicum of health care for their workers. The new health care law says that what they were previously providing was inadequate. McDonalds says: we don’t want to provide any more health care, if you hold us to the new law, we will drop their coverage entirely. The paltry wages earned by McDonalds workers would not be adjusted after dropping health care benefits so the workers could not afford a private alternative. The government would end up having to subsidize the health care costs for essentially the entirety of McDonalds workers. Therefore the government decides to allow McDonalds to continue providing poor health care benefits for the time being.

I suspect that as rates continue to rise, McDonalds, along with many other companies, will end up dropping health coverage eventually (or slashing the coverage to truly unacceptable levels) and rely on their employees to get their own from some insurance exchange.

“Paltry wages”? Sounds to me that they need to organize under the banner of a labor union; they’d then stand a chance of aquiring better benefits and increased wages.

 

[vz71]

“Paltry wages”? Sounds to me that they need to organize under the banner of a labor union; they’d then stand a chance of aquiring better benefits and increased wages.

Please…no.

I like my burgers at the price they are now.
I do not wish to pay for the burger and union overhead.

I would have to stop eating McDonalds, and the store would lose my business.
If too many people felt the same way, McDonalds would have to cut labor to keep up their cost of doing business.

Unemployment would rise.

But on the bright side, I likely would weigh less.

 

[estesbob]

The problem is nobody really knew what was in this bill. Wait until the whole thing takes effect in 2014-you ain’t seen nothing yet

 

[shockerfan]

“Paltry wages”? Sounds to me that they need to organize under the banner of a labor union; they’d then stand a chance of aquiring better benefits and increased wages.

I doubt you would pay $10-12 for their value meals after they unionized. Then of course would come layoffs and more unemployment… Unless of course Obama and the Dems would pass a law requiring you to buy McDonalds along with their required health insurance.

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

I suspect that as time goes on, there will be no other choices available.
This ‘insurance exchange’ you speak of will be a single entity…and it will be run in part by the IRS.

Well yes, the point is that now there will actually be an alternative. Corporations and unions were not as supportive of health care reform as they could have been because health care costs are not quite high enough to hurt them yet. As the costs rise, I expect greater support for additional health care regulation (e.g. single payer, public option) from these groups.

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

The problem is nobody really knew what was in this bill. Wait until the whole thing takes effect in 2014-you ain’t seen nothing yet

I suspect you are projecting. Just because you refused to learn about its contents doesn’t mean everyone else did. Many people did know what was in the bill; surveys showed that the more informed people were about the bill, the more likely they were to support it.

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

“Paltry wages”? Sounds to me that they need to organize under the banner of a labor union; they’d then stand a chance of aquiring better benefits and increased wages.

Probably not, it doesn’t take much skill to work for McDonalds. The workers are not likely to get much more than a mandatory minimum wage, even if they did try to unionize.

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

It’s another liberal program like SS, that if it were so great, they would have had no problem making it voluntary.

But no, in order for it to work we must be forced to participate.

Get out of my life liberals, you have no right to be here.

And they are supposed to be the “smart” ones.

You don’t have to buy insurance, you can just pay more on your taxes. The reality is that if you can afford to pay for any health issue that might befall you out of pocket, the fine won’t break your bank account.

 

[bbarrick8383]

You don’t have to buy insurance, you can just pay more on your taxes. The reality is that if you can afford to pay for any health issue that might befall you out of pocket, the fine won’t break your bank account.

Yep, unfortunately it’s against forum rules for me to properly express my feelings for the liberal ideology.

 

[gamewell45]

I doubt you would pay $10-12 for their value meals after they unionized. Then of course would come layoffs and more unemployment… Unless of course Obama and the Dems would pass a law requiring you to buy McDonalds along with their required health insurance.

I’d doubt it that you’d pay that much for a value meal. Most likely a nickle or dime more, which is reasonable and while i don’t eat many meals at mickey dee’s, when I do, I’d be willing to pay the price increase.

Maybe the exec’s will take a little bit less in their Christmas Bonus every year knowing that they employees will have access to health care.

 

[gamewell45]

Probably not, it doesn’t take much skill to work for McDonalds. The workers are not likely to get much more than a mandatory minimum wage, even if they did try to unionize.

From my experience, workers who organize tend to always receive higher wage’s then their non-union counterparts in addition to health benefits, job security and a voice in the workplace; something which their non-union counterparts as a rule do not enjoy.

 

[gamewell45]

Yep, unfortunately it’s against forum rules for me to properly express my feelings for the liberal ideology.

I agree;

 

[vz71]

I suspect you are projecting. Just because you refused to learn about its contents doesn’t mean everyone else did. Many people did know what was in the bill; surveys showed that the more informed people were about the bill, the more likely they were to support it.

Nancy Pelosi stated we would have to pass the bill to know what was in it.

 

[estesbob]

I suspect you are projecting. Just because you refused to learn about its contents doesn’t mean everyone else did. Many people did know what was in the bill; surveys showed that the more informed people were about the bill, the more likely they were to support it.

Appears administration didn’t know wat was in was on the bill that’s why they’re scrambling to get out waivers. And then there was a farce of Barney Frank et al demanding hearings as to why major companies were issuing notices about their increase cost due to the healthcare law, only to find out what they were doing was required by law.

Perhaps you can explain to us why they would have to expanded a 1099 reporting requirements in this bill? Or are you aware of that? And perhaps you could explain why they have so many people panicked over the fact healthcare benefits will be reported on employees W2s next year giving rise to the rumor that healthcare benefits are going to be taxed starting in 2011 (I get at least one phone call a week from clients about this). But then I guess everybody wasn’t as well-informed as you are. And since you’re such an expert on this bill tell us exactly how the pre-existing conditions being covered is working out for people? And the bill is done wonders for child only insurance policies, hasn’t it? Can you tell us at what level healthcare benefits will be taxed? I assume been so well-informed you should go to give that figure right off the top your head. And can you tell us who has been exempted from this tax why?