UPS and Obamacare: Working Domestic Partner Coverage is a Package Too Far

"UPS and a growing list of other big companies will end health insurance coverage of employees' spouses this fall if they can get coverage elsewhere — an unwelcome result, at least in part, of Obamacare.

Increased medical costs, "combined with the costs associated with the Affordable Care Act (ACA), have made it increasingly difficult to continue providing the same level of health care benefits to our employees at an affordable cost," UPS said in a memo to employees.

A survey by consultant Towers Watson found that in 2013, 4 percent of large employers excluded spouses who also had coverage at their own workplace, and 8 percent planned to implement the restriction next year, Kaiser Health News and USA Today reported.

"When healthcare reform came on the scene a few years ago we definitely saw an uptick in companies wanting to explore a working-spouse provision," Steve Noury, national sales director for HMS Employer Solutions, told Kaiser. "We have seen [them] over the past two or three years putting those in place."

While Obamacare requires large employers to cover employees and dependent children, it does not require them to cover spouses or domestic partners.

The move by UPS will affect an estimated 15,000 working spouses at that company, which UPS estimated would save about $60 million annually.” - UPS Cutting Back Spousal Health Coverage, Blames Obamacare, Newsmax, 08/21/2013



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http://www.newsmax.com/Economy/Obamacare-health-UPS-spouse/2013/08/21/id/521521?s=al&promo_code=1499D-1