Monday, March 22, 2010

Understanding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Part 1

‘‘SEC. 2716. PROHIBITION OF DISCRIMINATION BASED ON
SALARY.
‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—The plan sponsor of a group
health plan (other than a self-insured plan) may not estab
lish rules relating to the health insurance coverage eligi
bility (including continued eligibility) of any full-time em
ployee under the terms of the plan that are based on the
total hourly or annual salary of the employee or otherwise
HR 3590 EAS/PP
establish eligibility rules that have the effect of discrimi
nating in favor of higher wage employees.
'‘(b) LIMITATION.—Subsection (a) shall not be con4
strued to prohibit a plan sponsor from establishing con5
tribution requirements for enrollment in the plan or cov6
erage that provide for the payment by employees with lower
hourly or annual compensation of a lower dollar or percent8
age contribution than the payment required of similarly sit9
uated employees with a higher hourly or annual compensa10
tion.
In plain English:
"an employer can't discriminate on which of their employees gets insurance (high or low salaried employees) BUT they can make those with larger salaries pay a larger portion than the lower salary employees for the same coverage plan."
This is simply another example of REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH--the basic tenet of Marxism

2 comments:

maggie-t said...

thx for translating it. :)

Do you think there is any chance the Bill can be rolled back?

We are... said...

I think part of this is good in the sense that employers will stop trying to get around providing their employees insurance...

For example, I used to work at Wells Fargo as a teller. I wanted to go full-time and NEEDED to go full-time, so when another part time person quit, I was anticipating being able to go full-time by taking on their hours. Come to find out, they wouldn't allow me to take on more hours simply because they didn't want to have to provide me with the insurance benefits (which I would still be paying for, just not quite as much). This happened with another job as well, but in that case, they structured their hours so they wouldn't have to provide any type of benefits at all to their employees. Every single employee was working one hour too little to receive any benefits. There are definitely things that need to change. Not that I'm saying this is the dead-on answer, but I can see what they are trying to accomplish.

And I am interested to hear about the nursing mothers one. I know, as a mother who has to work, still being able to nurse is the only thing that gives me consolation in my efforts of balancing work and home life. And when I can't nurse when he needs to, it breaks my heart...