Express Lane to Single Payer

Wegman’s grocery stores are eliminating health coverage for parttime workers:

However, part-time employees may actually benefit from Wegmans’ decision, according to Brian Murphy, a partner at Lawley Benefits Group, an insurance brokerage firm in Buffalo.

“If you have an employee that qualifies for subsidized coverage, they might be better off going with that than a limited part-time benefit,” Murphy said.

That’s because subsidized coverage can have a lower out-of-pocket cost for the insured employee while also providing better benefits than an employer-paid plan.

Under the Affordable Care Act, part-time employees are not eligible for health insurance subsidies if their employer offers insurance.

“It’s a win-win. The employee gets subsidized coverage, and the employer gets to lower costs,” Murphy said.

Hey… what about taxpayers who have to foot the bill for those subsidies? Are we winners, too?

I expect to see a lot more parttime workers (and there are a LOT more parttime workers nowadays) getting dumped onto these subsidized exchanges. And with the employer mandate delayed until at least 2015, there’s a huge incentive for employers to dump fulltime workers, too.

Who’s going to pay for all this largess?

The Rich™!