:-)
and now for health benefits:
Even at Giant Companies,
Many Lack Health Benefits
By Vanessa Fuhrmans
From The Wall Street Journal Online
An increasing number of Americans lacking health insurance are turning up in unexpected places -- the factories and offices of the country's major employers.
Large companies have long formed the bedrock of the U.S. system of employer-sponsored health insurance. A company with more than 1,000 employees is much more likely to provide health coverage than a business of fewer than 25 people -- one reason many workers opt for jobs and the stability of benefits at the bigger employers. Nevertheless, between 1987 and 2001, the percentage of uninsured workers in large companies climbed to 11% from 7%, according to a new study from the Commonwealth Fund, a private research foundation.
Roughly one out of four people without health coverage in the U.S. -- about 10 million -- work part time or full time at companies with 500 or more workers, or are the dependents of these workers, the study's researchers say.
Few big employers have dropped health-care coverage. In fact, the percentage of large companies that do offer benefits has actually increased slightly, to more than 99% in recent years, according to U.S. government survey data. But as employers' health-care costs continue to soar, many are pushing benefits out of the reach of some low-income employees with stricter eligibility criteria and higher premium contributions for workers.
"Large firms really haven't stopped providing health coverage," says Cathy Schoen, vice president for health policy and research at the Commonwealth Fund, "It's that employee-participation rates are going down."
That is creating stark differences in workers' coverage, sometimes within the same company. Employers don't often discriminate among different classes of workers when it comes to health benefits. But companies' lowest-wage earners have been hit hardest by the rising costs. According to the study, 46% of all low-income workers in large firms, those earning less than 200% of the Federal Poverty Level, go without insurance for at least part of the year. That includes part-time workers and new employees who may still be waiting to become eligible for a company's health plan. "The end result is that you can have people working side by side, some people with reasonably comprehensive benefits and those who don't have anything," adds Ms. Schoen.
Behind the trend is a broader, longer-term shift in the labor market. The share of workers in manufacturing jobs, which traditionally have come with relatively generous benefits, has dropped 11 percentage points at larger companies since 1987, making room for jobs at retailers and other large service-industry companies. The labor forces at those companies tend to experience higher turnover, earn lower wages and consist of more part-time workers.
[Gosh- wasn't this what I was saying??? I thought it was.]
At Wal-Mart Stores Inc., for instance, new hourly workers must wait six months to sign up for benefits, and part-timers -- those who work fewer than 34 hours a week -- can join the plan only after two years on the job. About 10% of Wal-Mart's work force doesn't have, or has opted not to take, insurance; about half are on the Wal-Mart plan, and the remaining 40% have insurance elsewhere.
Retailers with similar policies say such waiting periods have been a cornerstone of their benefit rules for some time and are necessary because of their higher rates of employee turnover. Without such waiting periods, the administrative costs of employees joining and leaving plans would be out of control, they say.
Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Ark., says that of the employees on its health plan, about 40% had no health insurance at all before joining the company. "These are people who probably would have fallen through the cracks before coming to Wal-Mart," says Mona Williams, vice president of communications at the company.
Many companies with relatively generous benefits also have made more aggressive moves to control health-care costs. Costco Wholesale Corp., for instance, hadn't raised rates for health benefits in eight years. Recently, though, the Issaquah, Wash., company said it is making changes to the plan that will raise employees' contributions to about 8% of their health-benefit costs by 2007, up from 4.5% now.
Part-time employees will have a slightly more expensive plan than full-time employees, says Richard Galanti, Costco's chief financial officer. He adds: "But even with the extra cost involved, it's still a fraction of what employees at other companies are paying."
Even employers with traditionally strong health coverage are contracting out more jobs to companies that don't necessarily provide the same benefits, says Joe Martingale, a senior consultant at employee-benefits firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide. Barbara Fors, is a cook at Minnesota State University in Mankato, Minn., but her employer is a large food-service company. New employees have to wait until the company's annual open-enrollment period to join the health plan and work at least 32 hours a week to remain eligible.
Ms. Fors says she doesn't take the coverage for herself and her two sons because she can't afford the monthly premiums, which have risen to $700 since she began working there five years ago. "I just try to get by," she says. "When my tax return comes, that's when I pay my medical bills."
careerjournal.com
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