Hi John, I think Intel should drop its health care insurance for employees and give them cash instead to buy plans on the free market so their employees are free to get the type of comprehensive coverage they want and also so Intel gets out from under any apparent perceptions of health insurance discrimination against women. Here's why:
a) Currently, Intel chooses the plan offerings for the consumers (their employees), the consumers don't choose the portfolio of plans offered to them. While rumorville says the # of plan offerings have greatly improved, the underlying plans continue to exert too much control and apparently have huge issues. Weird gross things, like insurances not paying for a consumeable bag to hold something like urine after a surgery (or something like that, don't exactly know this person's specifics as this was heard 3rd or 4th hand). Most annoying to the few women at Intel are the current selection of health care plans that apparently work against women (by not covering women-oriented procedures), meanwhile other companies plans do, which sends a rather huge message to Intel women (that know about this discrepency) that they should work elsewhere. This simply gives other companies (that don't have this discrepency) more ammunition and tools to recruit women employees out from Intel. Why provide a health care benefit when it puts your company at risk of being perceived it puts women at a disadvantage to work there? Why not just give cash to employees in an amount equivalent to health care premiums and let them find their own plans on the market, and get out from under it, so it's equal? And let the best insurance company win the employees business by offering a comprehensive plan that also covers women-oriented procedures. As a female investor, I find it offensive to hear about some discrepencies for women, who are at a disadvantage under Intel's plan compared to other industry plans.
b) If Walmart can get the State of California to pay $38 million for Walmart California workers health care insurance, why shouldn't Intel too? My vote is for Intel to give cash to employees to purchase whatever insurance policy they want. And since CA State laws are so bad when it comes to health care insurance rules for women, it makes absolutely perfect sense to dump this burden onto the State of CA. Since their bad laws are the source of this problem. It'll force them to clean up their health care insurance laws, which currently allow health insurance companies to discriminate coverage against women. This shouldn't be Intel's job to clean this up, at investor expense. Force the State of CA to clean it up. It's their problem, their laws, their mistake, so it should come at their cost. Not Intel's.
c) Imagine how powerful Intel's message would be to legislatures, if Intel dropped their health insurance coverage altogether. It would force legislatures to clean up the consumer health care laws, which currently permit gender-based insurance discrimination (bizarre, when you really think about it.) Intel shouldn't be stuck between the health care insurance providers and the consumer. They should get out from under it, and let the State's Congress clean up the consumer health care insurance laws, to allow consumers to select individual plans on their own.
You've often said, nothing should come between consumers (including women) selecting what they want. Couldn't agree more.
Regards,
Amy J |
