Namely, anybody who gets access to affordable coverage at work is barred from getting subsidies through the new exchanges. This is even true for people who don't buy insurance at work; just the act of getting offered employer coverage blocks individuals from using getting financial help.They do kind of get around to mentioning, at the end, that "the loser in the Walmart decision is the Federal budget." What that means is that the loser is the taxpayer, i.e., you and me and everyone we know. Walmart is saving money at our expense.
That financial help can be a big deal for those with lower incomes. Think of the 36-year-old Walmart employee here in Washington, D.C. who works 29 hours per week at the company's average wage of $12.73 per hour. She earns just about $19,000 annually if she works every week of the year.
If Walmart doesn't offer her insurance, the Kaiser Family Foundation's subsidy calculator shows that she qualifies for a $1,751 subsidy from the federal government to help buy coverage on the exchange. With that financial help, she can buy insurance for as little as an $7 per month. As a low-wage worker, she gets some of the most generous financial help.
But if Walmart does offer her coverage, it becomes her only option. She doesn't qualify for federal help and the $7 plan disappears. Walmart's plan, meanwhile, is way more expensive. The average premium there works out to $111 per month.
Great news! Good job, progressives. You've managed to enrich the Walton family.
Also, though they won't do it all at once, you've managed to depress the wages of Walmart workers and other workers in similar industries. That's because right now Walmart has been paying them enough that they could afford that $111 a month if it was important to them. Now, raises can slim and come fewer and further between, as Walmart has $111/month cushion in its workers' paycheck that it can play with. Since Walmart competes for workers with many other similar companies, all of those companies will also be able to pay less over time and still draw the workers they need.
Especially if they get that comprehensive immigration reform you'd like, right? Imagine when we can vastly inflate the labor supply at that level of competition, and with people who are accustomed to living the lifestyle of an undocumented immigrant.
Yes sir, you're really helping out the working man. Morons.
7 comments:
So you prefer to blame corporations and politicians over the shapeless Left, as you call it.
What does that accomplish again?
Is there some virtuous benefit to one over the other?
Who says I'm blaming corporations? They're doing what they do: maximizing shareholder value. That's their job: they're functionally amoral.
It's of no concern to them if their employees starve and die, as long as there are others to hire. That's what we designed corporations to be. You can't blame them for acting according to their nature.
The morons, however, deserve both blame and mockery. The virtue in making sure they personally receive it is the virtue called "justice."
SJWs. Social Justice Warriors. They want to make things 'better' but always make things worse.
If California is anything to judge by, what we will end up with is the perverse situation of the govt payins subsidies to insurance companies for coverage in networks so small as to be unusable by the subscribers. Hence, the insurance will never have to pay out, but still get the premiums.
She earns just about $19,000 annually if she works every week of the year.
Interesting. I wasn't aware that Walmart had implemented a policy of only hiring women. Maybe that's just for minimum wage positions?
Or maybe the writer is trying to ignore standard usage in English in order to pursue "social justice" for all those oppressed womyn suffering under the yoke of Patriarchal grammar.
Regardless, any writer who uses "she" when he should use "he" (ie, when the sex of the individual being discussed is not specified) is not worth bothering with. The bias ensures that anything else he writes will be unreliable at best.
It IS conceivable that they are referencing a specific person who happens to be a woman. After all, they do give a very specific age (36) and location (Washington DC). Unless the pay scale at Walmart is location based (possible to likely) and age based (almost certainly not) then the only reason to mention both is that you are referring to an actual person, likely known to the author.
I'm not saying that's a certainty, just a possibility.
Yes sir, you're really helping out the working man. Morons.
Grim, that may be the single most uncharitable thing I've ever seen you write! I don't disagree at all, but still, that was as shocking to me as you swearing would be (again, not that I believe you are incapable, just that it is outside my experience).
Sorry to disappoint you, Mike. As I was telling Ymar, I thought the term was a matter of justice; but perhaps I should be more charitable than just.
Not at all. I was merely expressing my surprise. Not my dismay (as I have no issues with your characterization).
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