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OBAMACARE

Orlando Studios Blames Obamacare for Dropping Health Coverage for Part-Timers

The Affordable Care Act prohibits a plan covering part-time workers

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by Dain Fitzgerald

Staff Writer t

Image: Wikipedia

Adding to the list of institutions squirming under the strictures of the Affordable Care Act is Universal Studios, Orlando. The theme park will begin dropping it's limited health coverage for part-time workers come the end of the year.

The Orlando-Sentinel reports on the company's decision to no longer provide so-called "mini-med" plans. The plans provide part-time workers a partial insurance plan that offers low premiums but caps payouts.

Why are the studios dropping mini-med? Because such plans are not allowed by the ACA, effective next year. It's a move that is expected to effect only about 500 of Universal Studio's 17,000 central Florida staff (most are covered by a parent's or spouse's health insurance).

"We'd like to have the option to continue offering them, but the ACA doesn't offer that type of flexibility," said company spokesman Rich Jeffers.

Another Florida-based company, Olive Garden, claimed last year that it would slash workers' hours to avoid running afoul of Obamacare's mandates, though it eventually opted not to following a public backlash and the results of its own experiments with more staff working fewer hours.

Via the Orlando-Sentinel.
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Comments (view in Forum)

  • Neo_NtheMatrix
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    It's sad, it truly is. However, the obamabots have doubled down on their support of obamacare. They still don't believe it is a job killer.
  • o
    Sonny
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    @Neo_NtheMatrix --That's correct! There has never been any serious independent proof of any such unintended consequence of the Affordable Care Act...But we do know, for a fact, that a lack of heath care would indeed kill a lot of Americans....
  • stepped_in_it
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    @Sonny So true. Lack of health care would indeed "kill a lot of Americans". Lack of funds while paying for said health care due to not qualifying for a health plan partially funded by employer...etc will harm a lot of Americans due to starvation, lack of adequate housing or just not having said health care and paying the additional "tax" (which appears to be cheaper). Holding out for those "cheaper" health care Obamacare was supposed to provide.....
  • martydotcom
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    @Neo_NtheMatrix for the Obama haters bots missing from the article is that the part time employees will be able to buy their own Heath care from a selection of plans I wonder if this company will increase the part time employee's salary by a comparable amount the company is saving by canceling
  • martydotcom
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    @stepped_in_it 'tis a wonderful country isn't it? We are one of the few nations left in the world, certainly the only Western economy where for many illness or an accident equals fiscal ruin.
  • View all 37 replies >
  • u
    Realthinker
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    The article says Universal has to drop their part time insurance coverage because it isn't allowed under the Obamacare law. What does that have to do with the governor and the Tea Party? They didn't write the Obamacare law. It was the Democrats who wrote the law to forbid part time workers getting coverage that they alread had.
  • martydotcom
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    @thatgirl I Woner if this company will compensate these employees for the premiums the company no longer will be paying so that employee can get a plan for the "pool"
  • View all 7 replies >
  • stepped_in_it
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    When more information about the definitions of Obamacare's effect become more apparent on businesses we will hear more of these stories. Some will say business greed, some the price of business and others the failures of liberalism! I believe Obamacare is nothing more than another Democrat tax....and will cost this country dearly!
  • scotta
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    This care is increasing every day. I hate to here that this is happening. The bottom line is what counts in business. What are the poor who don't qualify for med a care or medacade that can not afford to buy a plan. Gets fined for nor having health care. New broad cast said they are not taking applications for preexisting conditions. The are all ready full.
  • o
    NTBFW
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    This "affordable" care act is going to cost so much more than we were told. It's going to hurt the very people it was supposed to help. And it going to cost real taxpayers a fortune. But the appeal of "Free" healthcare was enough to get Obama re elected and that's all that mattered to him. He knows the real costs won't start piling up until he is gone and the blame will fall on the next president.
  • o
    Sonny
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    The Affordable Care Act does not provide for "free healthcare" That's just not true. some want to worry about what they call the costs of healthcare "piling up". Yet those very same people don't seem to care about the dead bodies piling up from the millions of American Citizens that heretofore, did not have any healthcare coverage at all... I have never understood how some people want to strongly deny to another American Citizen, what they take for granted on a daily basis?!? Very strange, indeed.
  • o
    NTBFW
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    @Sonny here is where you are wrong. I care a lot about people not getting healthcare. But how does implementing a bad law that we can't possibly pay for that doesn't help the people it was supposed to help going to do any good? You have a bad case of good intentions that have bad results disease. There is no way this plan can work. Why not scrap it now before it does too much damage and find a real solution that might actually work? Do NOT accuse me of not caring. I oppose this abomination because I DO care!
  • o
    Sonny
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    @NTBFW Those are your opinions. I don't agree with any of them. The problem is that for decades we have "talked" about how to cover the 50 million or more people who don't have healthcare...Yet NOTHING has ever been done...So now its time to act. We should never go backwards and "scrap" anything...unless or until we move to a system of universal/single-payer coverage for all...

    Healthcare is a right in this country...and everyone is entitled to be covered ----One way or the other!
  • o
    NTBFW
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    @Sonny where is universal health care in the constitution ? And this is simply going to cost us more. It's already costing jobs. I can't hire anyone until I find out what it's going to cost. Right now they are saying $20,000. I can't absorb that kind of increase. So you think it's better to bankrupt the country and then nobody has healthcare? If someone could come up with a real workable plan that actually worked would you be willing to scrap this mess? The numbers are not adding up.
  • drpeeper
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    @Sonny LOL you make it sound like a concentration camp. And yes, the costs will be piling up to businesses. And if you like they can pass the costs down to you. Liberals never understand that. I have never understood how the left doesn't get personal responsibility. And if you DO have to go to a hospital now, they can't refuse to treat you, and you can be covered by Medicaid now at any age,low income.

    Why don't you give me something you 'take for granted' like half your paycheck? How would that be?
  • View all 13 replies >
  • PNWest
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    If you were correct then how do you explain the democratic victory in November? Obamacare had been the law of the land for over 2 years prior to the election and the right wing had been trying to repeal it from day one. John Boehner and his band of angry white guys voted to repeal Obamacare 33 times for goodness sake. Right wing radio bitched about it every day. Far from being the democrats undoing it would appear that this was part of the GOP's undoing. Even now GOP governors that claimed to be against it are quietly signing up for it. The right wing opposed social security. The right wing opposed medicare. And the right wing opposed Obamacare. Wrong all three times.
  • o
    Sonny
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    Nope, just the beginning...Perhaps next time---We will get "universal or single-payer" coverage or all!!! Its just the beginning, my friend.
  • u
    Yank
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    @PNWest I would say low information voters who voted based on the promise of free stuff from Obama. Sure Obama care has been law, but when does it's major provisions start?

    P.S. "angry old white guys"? Do the minorities and women not count? Is it not racism/sexism because it came from a progressive leftist?
  • PNWest
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    @Yank "angry old white guys" is from one of yours - Lindsay Graham. Low information voters is just a cheap cop out because you can't face the facts that you lost the election. I get nothing in benefits from the government yet I voted for Obama. I'm not a low information voter. He was the better of the 2 choices. When you have to throw people out of you conventions because they threw peanuts at a black cameraman and said "this is how we feed the animals" and make the kinds of comments about rape that several of your candidates did please don't tell me that I shouldn't criticize your party for racism and sexism.
  • u
    Yank
    !
    @PNWest so you point at two people (who were thrown out of the convention) and that is party racism? What about the thousands who kicked them out? Oh, no you think the two people reflect the party instead of the thousands of others. You think that you can get a pass for sexism and racism because someone else in some other party is also sexist or racist?
  • View all 6 replies >
  • bsking
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    We have to pass the bill before we know what's in it......

    and now it's law so now we start finding out what's in it.
    Same with that ridiculous Democrat notion of giving police the right to enter inspect your home if you own a gun... yet another instance of Democrats tipping their hand too early... this is the first step towards confiscation and when the two idiot Democrats who put it forward realized the weight of the backlash both of them denied that they had even read the bill before they endorsed it... but like always they let the cat out of the bag early. of course the state run media will not pick up on that, but they have withdrawn that proposal.
  • texas_cutie75
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    I am voting I am not sure because some companies can not afford it and others are making a statement. I don't have access to their financial records, so I can't throw my 2 cents in there.
  • u
    tomincali
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    what will they do when all companies start making all employees part time just to avoid the cost. it can be done hospitals do it with per deims . trying to force anyone to pay for someone elses medical is robbery.

    most folks i know pay their own way and all they expect form an employer is a pay check anything more is a bonus.
  • u
    BossTweed
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    Nancy Pelosi wrote the Bill. without any advise from anyone in the business community, health care providers or the non union middle class. Those groups will be most adversely impacted by the ACA as it stands. Many Americans will find it unacceptable. Cadillac plans for Bureaucrats, Unions, and Politicans with every one else suffering from it just isn't fair.
    We are better than that folks.
  • u
    Grubby
    !
    Obamacare is a disaster. The American public have no idea how bad the health care will be when it is fully implemented. So, what do you think Obama will do? Blame George Bush of course. If there is anything bad in this bill, which passed with near zero Republican support or votes, it has to somehow be blamed on Boehner and Bush....it just has to be.
  • PayThatCEO
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    VERY few companies provide healthcare to part-time workers. That's why they hire part-time workers. Sears has done this for decades to avoid paying out benefits to employees. Home Depot does the same thing.

    These aren't mom and pop pizza shops. These are major corporations that can very well afford benefits for their workers. Instead, they'll either dump these employees or force them into Obamacare that they will have to pay for themselves.

    It is the corporatism that is killing this country. Universal Studios in Orlando makes over 2 billion dollars a year, and they are griping about health insurance for about 500 employees?

    It's time we wake up and realize Americans are being screwed by the companies they work for and spend their money on. And it's only going to get worse. It makes no difference who is president. All we have to do is look to the oil companies to see how out of control these companies have gotten. Those of us who either work for them or buy their goods and services are being destroyed by them.
  • AntiPorcheria
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    From the story:
    "Universal is one of the largest employers in Central Florida, with approximately 17,000 employees. It has thousands of part-time workers, though Universal said only about 500 of them are enrolled in the current insurance plan."

    Universal was covering the 500 part timers that decided to enroll for $18 a week. It is a problem in the wording of the Affordable Health Care act that has forced the decision to drop it. It is not allowed by Federal Mandate.
  • PayThatCEO
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    @AntiPorcheria

    I think we'll find bugs in the system that will need to be worked out over time. Everyone will have to work together, including employers.
  • Hoosierdaddy
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    Come on dain this is a very slanted poll, this is just an unintended consequence of the act. This is what happens when bills that are too big get passed, the healthcare act should have been much more flexible these mini med insurance on average are enough to cover most people
  • cat2009
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    If that's what companies have to do to survive then by all means. The problem with the media bringing this out is that they support Obama.
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