Here is a chart showing health care cost distribution in the US. Note that 50% of the population sends < $664 for healthcare in a given year, and 80% spend less then $3200. Since I suspect the workers in question skew young, their numbers are probably lower. Assuming an average of $700 a year in premiums, they are almost certainly paying more for insurance than they would pay in healthcare expenses without insurance (and I’m ignoring the copays here, which makes it worse.) That might be fine if the insurance has the upside of covering the rare high expense procedure, but this insurance doesn’t do even that. McDonalds might as well be offering a chance to play the numbers as a benefit.
If I were the insurance company I’d pay McDonalds a bounty for every sucker ^h^h^h hourly employee signed up.
Obligatory joke: No surprise here really, since McD’s menu says to customers “drop dead.”
Even assuming that all of them spring for the $5000 plan, they’re still getting screwed.
If you have $5000 in medical bills and only get reimbursed for $2000 of it, you are basically just as screwed as if you weren’t covered at all. Remember, these employees have already forked out more than a third of the coverage limit, including for years when they had no medical expenses at all.
The point is that your car insurance is not a screwjob when you do have a crash. This mini-med plan is a screwjob whether or not the employee gets sick.
Not with this insurance. There’s no indication that preventive care doesn’t count against the benefit cap.
The sadly amusing part of this whole story is that Republicans somehow think this story an indictment of the Obama administration rather than the health insurance companies. The truth is that it isn’t the $100 doctor’s office visit that most Americans fear. That bill we can cover on our own. We’re really afraid of the chronic illness or the catastrophic illness and having no medical insurance to cover it. These lousy, overpriced plans do absolutely nothing to address that concern at all.
They are expensive, provide little coverage and do nothing but hand over funds to insurance company executives. Worse they let companies that offer them pretend they’re being nice to their employees.
Would that Republicans and Democrats had the guts to admit that nothing really works but single payer but that obviously isn’t going to happen. The Dems are gutless and the Reps are heartless. All Americans pay the price in increased medical bills and a completely inefficient system.
Just to be the threadshitter, yeah, my boss does. Of course, this is Canada, and a small business, so 8 employees for a month is just slightly more than what I pay in rent a month for a one bedroom.
My son works for UPS. At least as of last year, the company covered his medical insurance (as an union hourly). I don’t believe he had to pay anything. He has recently moved to management, and no longer has the union backing. He now has to pay a monthly amount to cover his health care.
So yes. At least one company offers free health care (or did).
Sorry, and I agree. I meant the OP’s take. I agree that view isn’t the unanimous view of “the SDMB” (e.g., I’m part of the SDMB, much to some people’s chagrin, and I disagree).
Forgive me, what other take is obvious? McDonald’s is making money selling insurance to its lower-class workers. It wants the rules to change to allow it to continue to make profits off of this well in excess of international norms.
McDonald’s negotiated with Aetna on behalf of its hourly employees for inexpensive health insurance that covers 100% of the health care expenses of 85% of its hourly employees that purchase the insurance. Many hourly employees actually do purchase that insurance. So, everyone’s happy.
But no, Obama’s not happy. The guvmint needs to butt it’s big ass-nose into the situation by mandating that all health insurance plans must only pay a certain percentage toward administration. And these types of plans can’t meet that standard because of the high turnover in the industry. So, McDonald’s will not be able to offer this coverage to its hourly employees any more. You know, the coverage that McDonad’s and the employees and Aetna were all perfectly happy with.
So the numbers I have shown for other (German and Chinese) companies are not correct? Or perhaps Aetna and McDonald’s are simply so mismanaged they cannot do what other companies do and so they must be allowed to charge more than international norms?
Yep. Big ol’ nasty Obama is doing this to people all over the nation. Everyone’s perfectly happy with their health insurance, and everybody just wants mean ol’ President Liberal McSpendypants to back away from the poor, helpless insurance companies that have been skating by on razor-thin profit margins and administrative costs.
$700/year, with a max payout of $2,000. That is a poor deal, any way you look at it. The suckers would be much better off self-insuring, and simply sticking $13.46 per week into an envelope under their mattress.
My company offers similarly outrageously sucky Aetna coverage.
$250 a month premium, $35 a month prescription bennies cap, max $2K payout for hospitalization.
I looked at the coverage, and it would have saved me no money. It made more sense to continue to pay out of pocket than buy their insurance, because my maintenance meds run $500-600 ish, retail, per month. Half my income, pretty much.
But my county has a low-income health system, and I enrolled last year…
…and I’m still waiting on needed sinus surgery from the county health system, for a sinus infection a private doc diagnosed in '07.
Hey-at least no migraines this week…too bad the low-grade fever’s back…:mad:
If you had read the article, you would know that Aetna has nothing to do with McDonald’s mini-med plan, and that Aetna just happens to be a mini-med plan provider for some other companies.