7 ms·

I have a question about the Walmart thing - is healthcare not pro-rated according to how much you work? Or is this casual work where you get a higher hourly loa

by anitil 5y ago

I have a question about the Walmart thing - is healthcare not pro-rated according to how much you work? Or is this casual work where you get a higher hourly loading to compensate? I'm trying to translate it into the Australian work context, but we don't tie healthcare to employment so I'm a bit confused.

Baeocystin 5y ago
It's an all-or-nothing cutoff wall, so that if an employer schedules someone for 29 hours/week instead of 30, (for example) they don't have to provide anything. And so of course 90%+ of the companies that can short on this, do. It's as awful as you think.
pix64 5y ago
If you're working at Walmart, you don't get healthcare. Not through your employer anyways.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ianmcgowan 5y ago
  If you're full time you do, which is why Walmart and other big non-union companies strive as much as possible to have a part-time workforce. If you're part of corporate, or management, you're full time.. https://careers.walmart.com/us/jobs/WD597130-senior-software-engineer-full-stack https://careers.walmart.com/us/jobs/WD597130-senior-software... "Beyond competitive pay, you can receive incentive awards for your performance. Other great perks include 401(k) match, stock purchase plan, paid maternity and parental leave, PTO, multiple health plans, and much more."
ianmcgowan 5y ago
It varies by state, but typically part time employees get no employer funded healthcare at all, whereas there are required minimums for full time employees. Result: employers schedule everyone at 30 hours or less, in order to maximize shareholder value..
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  Forcing many people that want to eat to figure out how to work two jobs but nobody wants to hire someone for 10 hours so people are more apt to work 2 25 hour jobs.
rgbrenner 5y ago
No. While most people (especially higher wage workers) get health insurance through their employer, it is not guaranteed that your employer will provide that benefit. Prior to Obama, low wage workers might be scheduled to work full time without health insurance. If they're poor enough, they might get Medicaid from the state; otherwise they get to ruin their credit and claim bankruptcy if they show up at the emergency room. Obama passed ACA, which required employers with full time workers to provide health insurance or pay a fine per worker. Full time is defined as 30 hours per week or more by ACA. So in low wage jobs, employers responded by scheduling people for 29 hours. So if you work multiple jobs or a job+doordash/uber/etc... you may work full time, and not have any health insurance because no one employer is going over 29 hours. ACA also expanded Medicaid, but some states decided to decline that expansion. So whether that covers a low wage worker depends on where they are, the size of their household, and their total household earnings. For many of these workers, it's not just the risk of unexpected medical bills that they can't pay... they rarely have savings, so if they miss a few days of work (say because they contracted COVID), that can spiral into a series of missed bills. And with the eviction moratorium coming to an end, that now includes losing their home.
- hnick 5y ago
  Does anything happen if they keep you back for an hour and you "accidentally" go over the 30 hours? Or is it entirely based on the contract?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - lolinder 5y ago
    The threshold is 30 hours on average in a given month [0]. So, presumably, if you work 31 hours one week they'd make you work 28 the next to avoid you being labeled full-time. [0] https://www.irs.gov/affordable-care-act/employers/identifying-full-time-employees https://www.irs.gov/affordable-care-act/employers/identifyin...
  - whoknew1122 5y ago
b0tzzzzzzman 5y ago
A prior place I worked had full time status as 32 hours a week averaged over an 8 week period.
yourapostasy 5y ago
> is healthcare not pro-rated according to how much you work? No. > Or is this casual work where you get a higher hourly loading to compensate? No. It is precisely as horrific as you would imagine for those low-wage workers who want full-time jobs to obtain those healthcare benefits, but keep running into this issue in job after job. The official tax-oriented definition of "full-time" [1] is a bit more nuanced than what you will colloquially hear in discussions, but in broad terms, once you are put into the HR system for more than 30 hours in a week of work, the threshold to full-time is triggered. It is a binary switch, no spectrum, no gradient. This doesn't even begin to get into how capital-inefficient and service-poor so many of the healthcare plans are once you do get access to them as a low-wage worker. Nor how so many of these workers are so completely unequipped and unprepared to comprehend the fiscal realities of engaging these plans. [1] https://www.irs.gov/affordable-care-act/employers/identifying-full-time-employees https://www.irs.gov/affordable-care-act/employers/identifyin...
austincheney 5y ago
A too quick guide to American healthcare. * American healthcare is too expensive. The problem is long known and nobody wants to solve it. That problem is administrative inefficiency. Solving that problem means terminating the a large segment of a massive industry (destroying a massive number of jobs). Drugs are expensive too, but drug pricing problems impacts specific persons that when averaged across the entirety of the population become only a tiny part of the industry wide problem. Since medicine is expensive everybody is reliant upon insurance. The options are private insurance (expensive), employer offered insurance, and government insurance (designed for low income people and poor choices/service). The exceptions are Obama care and military. Military has a wonderful health insurance plan called Tricare. Tricare is great for the patient because they cover just about everything but they are really hard about releasing funds to medical providers so some medical providers refuse to take Tricare. Obama care is a new private insurance option from the government that provides an affordable insurance option partially subsidized by government funding. I have known people who are not insured and refused to get insurance then just never go to the doctor. Wonderful medical insurance is a primary reason I remained employed by the military for a number of years.
- entropea 5y ago
  Medicaid also works great. https://www.cbpp.org/research/health/medicaid-works-millions-benefit-from-medicaids-effective-efficient-coverage https://www.cbpp.org/research/health/medicaid-works-millions...
- gorbachev 5y ago
  Also relevant. Medical debt is the number one reason for personal bankruptcies in the US. It's absolutely shameful.
- handrous 5y ago
  > * American healthcare is too expensive. The problem is long known and nobody wants to solve it. That problem is administrative inefficiency. Solving that problem means terminating the a large segment of a massive industry (destroying a massive number of jobs). Drugs are expensive too, but drug pricing problems impacts specific persons that when averaged across the entirety of the population become only a tiny part of the industry wide problem. My impression from looking at this for many years now is that the problem is everything. Every single individual and entity involved—and that's a whole bunch—is taking too much money. That's why it's so hard to point at any one problem and dig deeper and fine all the money. Every time, you find some of it, and usually a lot, but not all of it. Doctors and other people actually providing care? Too few of them, and (or, "therefore") they're making too much money. Hospitals? Consolidation of hospitals and smaller providers into "networks"? Yes and yes, but still, that's not all. Administration costs? Yep, but not all of it. Insurance overhead? Yes, but... well, you get the idea.

by anitil 5y ago

Baeocystin 5y ago

It's an all-or-nothing cutoff wall, so that if an employer schedules someone for 29 hours/week instead of 30, (for example) they don't have to provide anything. And so of course 90%+ of the companies that can short on this, do. It's as awful as you think.

pix64 5y ago

If you're working at Walmart, you don't get healthcare. Not through your employer anyways.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ianmcgowan 5y ago
If you're full time you do, which is why Walmart and other big non-union companies strive as much as possible to have a part-time workforce. If you're part of corporate, or management, you're full time.. https://careers.walmart.com/us/jobs/WD597130-senior-software-engineer-full-stack https://careers.walmart.com/us/jobs/WD597130-senior-software... "Beyond competitive pay, you can receive incentive awards for your performance. Other great perks include 401(k) match, stock purchase plan, paid maternity and parental leave, PTO, multiple health plans, and much more."

ianmcgowan 5y ago

It varies by state, but typically part time employees get no employer funded healthcare at all, whereas there are required minimums for full time employees. Result: employers schedule everyone at 30 hours or less, in order to maximize shareholder value..

michaelmrose 5y ago
Forcing many people that want to eat to figure out how to work two jobs but nobody wants to hire someone for 10 hours so people are more apt to work 2 25 hour jobs.

rgbrenner 5y ago

No. While most people (especially higher wage workers) get health insurance through their employer, it is not guaranteed that your employer will provide that benefit. Prior to Obama, low wage workers might be scheduled to work full time without health insurance. If they're poor enough, they might get Medicaid from the state; otherwise they get to ruin their credit and claim bankruptcy if they show up at the emergency room. Obama passed ACA, which required employers with full time workers to provide health insurance or pay a fine per worker. Full time is defined as 30 hours per week or more by ACA. So in low wage jobs, employers responded by scheduling people for 29 hours. So if you work multiple jobs or a job+doordash/uber/etc... you may work full time, and not have any health insurance because no one employer is going over 29 hours. ACA also expanded Medicaid, but some states decided to decline that expansion. So whether that covers a low wage worker depends on where they are, the size of their household, and their total household earnings. For many of these workers, it's not just the risk of unexpected medical bills that they can't pay... they rarely have savings, so if they miss a few days of work (say because they contracted COVID), that can spiral into a series of missed bills. And with the eviction moratorium coming to an end, that now includes losing their home.

hnick 5y ago
Does anything happen if they keep you back for an hour and you "accidentally" go over the 30 hours? Or is it entirely based on the contract?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- lolinder 5y ago
  The threshold is 30 hours on average in a given month [0]. So, presumably, if you work 31 hours one week they'd make you work 28 the next to avoid you being labeled full-time. [0] https://www.irs.gov/affordable-care-act/employers/identifying-full-time-employees https://www.irs.gov/affordable-care-act/employers/identifyin...
- whoknew1122 5y ago

b0tzzzzzzman 5y ago

A prior place I worked had full time status as 32 hours a week averaged over an 8 week period.

yourapostasy 5y ago

> is healthcare not pro-rated according to how much you work? No. > Or is this casual work where you get a higher hourly loading to compensate? No. It is precisely as horrific as you would imagine for those low-wage workers who want full-time jobs to obtain those healthcare benefits, but keep running into this issue in job after job. The official tax-oriented definition of "full-time" [1] is a bit more nuanced than what you will colloquially hear in discussions, but in broad terms, once you are put into the HR system for more than 30 hours in a week of work, the threshold to full-time is triggered. It is a binary switch, no spectrum, no gradient. This doesn't even begin to get into how capital-inefficient and service-poor so many of the healthcare plans are once you do get access to them as a low-wage worker. Nor how so many of these workers are so completely unequipped and unprepared to comprehend the fiscal realities of engaging these plans. [1] https://www.irs.gov/affordable-care-act/employers/identifying-full-time-employees https://www.irs.gov/affordable-care-act/employers/identifyin...

austincheney 5y ago

A too quick guide to American healthcare. * American healthcare is too expensive. The problem is long known and nobody wants to solve it. That problem is administrative inefficiency. Solving that problem means terminating the a large segment of a massive industry (destroying a massive number of jobs). Drugs are expensive too, but drug pricing problems impacts specific persons that when averaged across the entirety of the population become only a tiny part of the industry wide problem. Since medicine is expensive everybody is reliant upon insurance. The options are private insurance (expensive), employer offered insurance, and government insurance (designed for low income people and poor choices/service). The exceptions are Obama care and military. Military has a wonderful health insurance plan called Tricare. Tricare is great for the patient because they cover just about everything but they are really hard about releasing funds to medical providers so some medical providers refuse to take Tricare. Obama care is a new private insurance option from the government that provides an affordable insurance option partially subsidized by government funding. I have known people who are not insured and refused to get insurance then just never go to the doctor. Wonderful medical insurance is a primary reason I remained employed by the military for a number of years.

entropea 5y ago
Medicaid also works great. https://www.cbpp.org/research/health/medicaid-works-millions-benefit-from-medicaids-effective-efficient-coverage https://www.cbpp.org/research/health/medicaid-works-millions...
gorbachev 5y ago
Also relevant. Medical debt is the number one reason for personal bankruptcies in the US. It's absolutely shameful.
handrous 5y ago
> * American healthcare is too expensive. The problem is long known and nobody wants to solve it. That problem is administrative inefficiency. Solving that problem means terminating the a large segment of a massive industry (destroying a massive number of jobs). Drugs are expensive too, but drug pricing problems impacts specific persons that when averaged across the entirety of the population become only a tiny part of the industry wide problem. My impression from looking at this for many years now is that the problem is everything. Every single individual and entity involved—and that's a whole bunch—is taking too much money. That's why it's so hard to point at any one problem and dig deeper and fine all the money. Every time, you find some of it, and usually a lot, but not all of it. Doctors and other people actually providing care? Too few of them, and (or, "therefore") they're making too much money. Hospitals? Consolidation of hospitals and smaller providers into "networks"? Yes and yes, but still, that's not all. Administration costs? Yep, but not all of it. Insurance overhead? Yes, but... well, you get the idea.