Americans with BCG, something that the US does not do for all its citizens to achieve good health.
Even Persians can read and readily understand the work of Dr Denise L Faustman, faustmanlab.org and pubmed.org faustman dl. Perhaps Iran may influence Americans by providing what is available all over the world except here?
- BUSINESS
- September 25, 2013, 7:26 p.m. ET
Firms Drop, Rather Than Upgrade, Cheapest Health Plans
Big Security-Guard Provider Will Steer 55,000 Workers to Exchanges
The nation's largest provider of security guards
plans to discontinue its lowest-cost health plans and steer roughly
55,000 workers to new government-sponsored insurance exchanges for
coverage next year, in the latest sign of the fraying ties between
employment and health care.
Bloomberg
Customer Mildred Gooden, right, looks at washing machines with employee Meti Robi at a Home Depot store last year.
The U.S. arm of Sweden's
Securitas AB
SECU-B.SK -0.47%
is among more than 1,200 employers that offer the kind of bare-bones
health plans that must be phased out beginning Jan. 1 under the
health-care law. Nearly four million people are enrolled in these
so-called mini-med plans, which cap benefits to participants, sometimes
at as little as $3,000 a year.
"The mini-meds go away and we're
not replacing them," said Jim McNulty, a spokesman for Securitas's U.S.
operation. "Their option is to go to the exchanges."
Other big employers, including
Darden Restaurants Inc.,
DRI -0.90%
Home Depot Inc.
HD -0.68%
and Trader Joe's Co., say they will stop offering health insurance to
part-time workers, and will direct those employees to the state
exchanges. Darden, Home Depot and Trader Joe's previously offered
mini-meds to their part timers.
The breadth of the trend isn't
clear, as employers scramble to finalize their 2014 health-care
offerings. Analysts have long speculated that the launch of the
insurance exchanges could prompt some employers to drop health coverage.
But benefits consultants said they know of few companies now providing
insurance that won't offer it to full-time workers next year.
In July the Obama administration may have inadvertently opened a
window for some companies to drop coverage by imposing a yearlong delay
on penalties for employers that don't offer health insurance.
Until then, Securitas executives said, they had planned to offer
guards a health plan with more benefits, but which would have required
employees to pay more to participate. Executives subsequently changed
course, deciding not to offer insurance to most guards next year, and to
develop offerings that comply with the health law for 2015.
Related Video
Enroll America, a nonprofit organization, is
canvassing and doing other types of outreach in New Jersey to get the
word out about the Affordable Care Act.
Experts disagreed on how an influx of working
Americans would affect the exchanges. Dave Axene, a consulting actuary
and fellow of the Society of Actuaries, said working people tend to be
relatively healthy, and might improve the economics of the exchanges. He
questioned how many would enroll, however.
But Ron Fontanetta, a senior health-care practice leader at consulting firm
Towers Watson,
TW +0.12%
said the workers most likely to tap the exchanges are those who need
the most medical care, potentially forcing insurers to pay out more than
projected for claims. "The individuals that have the most urgency to
enroll will be those that have health conditions," he said.
Mini-meds
are most common in low-wage industries such as retailing, restaurants
and agriculture. They are relatively cheap, with premiums around $100 a
month or less, depending on their scope.
They typically require small, if any, co-pays and deductibles. Some
employers pick up the entire cost, and don't require any employee
contributions, which is rare for other types of health insurance.
The flip side is that the benefits are limited, so policy holders
suffering serious accidents or illness can face big medical bills. That
troubled architects of the health law, which prohibits annual benefit
caps.
Explore how America's health-care overhaul will affect you on this first-person adventure.
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to start interactive experience.
Jonathan Gruber, one of the law's authors, and an
economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said
mini-meds weren't truly insurance. "If you have insurance that taps out
and doesn't protect you against risk, it isn't really insurance," he
said.
Employers who offer mini-meds say they are valuable to low-wage
workers. They say the prohibition is forcing them to offer better, but
more expensive, plans to people who may not be able to afford them or
take advantage of them. To reduce costs, many of the new plans require
large deductibles before the insurance kicks in.
At Rancho Guadalupe LLC, which grows fruits and vegetables on 4,000
acres near Santa Maria, Calif., roughly half of the 80 to 100 year-round
workers now participate in a mini-med that costs workers $50 a month,
according to general manager A.J. Cisney.
The plan requires $15 co-pays for a doctor visit and limits benefits to $25,000 a year.
On Jan. 1, the farm will switch to an insurance plan that, except for
preventive care and some diagnostic tests, won't kick in until a worker
has incurred $6,350 in medical bills. Mr. Cisney said he fears that
workers won't see any value and won't enroll. "I'm really concerned what
participation is going to look like when we talk to people about this
deductible," he said."That's not what we want. We want our people
covered."
Marek Family of Cos., a Houston-based home builder, began offering a
mini-med about eight years ago, after executives saw that few hourly
workers were enrolled in the company's more traditional insurance, said
Larry Williams, director of human resources. Marek pays the full premium
cost for its plan, which limits an employee's benefits to $60,000 a
year.
"Employees loved that plan, that's what they wanted," Mr. Williams
said. He said Marek is considering a plan like Guadalupe's with a
relatively high deductible, as well as a plan offering limited benefits
that complies with the law.
Mr. Williams expects those options to be more costly and said
employees likely will have to contribute. Because of the timing of its
renewal, Marek has until July 1 to come up with a replacement plan.
Erin Shields, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, said the law will improve the quality of
health-care offerings and boost employer coverage in the long run.
"Consumers will never again have to face bankruptcy when they get sick,
because annual limits on coverage will be banned once and for all," she
said.
Some workers whose employers don't offer them health insurance will
be better off, because they will qualify for subsidies at the
government-operated health exchanges that open Tuesday.
Workers aren't eligible for subsidies if their employer offers them comprehensive, affordable coverage.
The subsidies mean that many workers will find themselves better off
financially if they their employer doesn't offer coverage, said Sheldon
Blumling, a partner in the Irvine, Calif., office of Fisher &
Phillips LLP who works on employee benefits,
Trader Joe's said more than 70% of its part-time workers would pay
less to buy insurance through the exchanges than through the grocer's
existing health plan. After the subsidies, the company said, many
employees "should be able to obtain health-care coverage at very little,
if any, net cost."
Securitas's 90,000 U.S. employees guard office buildings, hospitals,
nuclear-power plants and public arenas such as Yankee Stadium, typically
for wages of $10 to $25 an hour, according to Santiago Galaz, president
of its North American unit.
About 12,000 employees were enrolled in the company's mini-meds,
which cost them $100 a month for a plan with a $50,000 annual limit or
$125 per month for a plan with $100,000 annual limit. Mr. McNulty said
Securitas plans to tell employees about the change in the next month or
two.
About 30% of Securitas's U.S. employees have insurance that complies
with the health law, either because they are covered by a union contract
or because the Securitas customer to whom they are assigned agreed to
pay the additional cost.
Before the Obama administration delayed the employer penalties,
Securitas executives had warned customers and investors to expect labor
costs to rise 10% next year to cover additional health-insurance
expenses.
When the administration delayed the penalties, executives
reconsidered. "We're not about to pick up an additional cost we can't
get reimbursed for," Mr. McNulty said. "We will try in 2014 to convince
more of our customers to help share the burden of health care and expand
coverage."
Write to Scott Thurm at
scott.thurm@wsj.com
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