McDonald's May Drop Health Plan

[RDD_1210]

I guess there's a part of you that can be truthful after all...

Damn, I forgot Nazi. Forgive my obvious oversight.

No, he's not a Nazi. You had it right the first time. But you did leave out racist.

Crap, I'll make sure I get that right next time. Thanks!

 

[Charles_Main]

I know! That combined with him lying about where was born and being a communist, socialist, marxist, muslim. All the man does is lie!!!

Nah just little things like. Health care will reduce costs, Health care wont add to the deficit, My administration will be the most transparent ever, Ill wont talk to lobbyists.

You do a good job of attempting to deflect with your talking points, but the American people see right through it.

He's a politician, not God, of course everything he says isn't going to be true. That doesn't mean though just because he is shown to be dishonest about some things, that makes everything he says a lie.

Really, and did you give Bush that same Benefit of the doubt?

It may not prove he lies about everything, but it surely gives us reason to doubt his word. Clearly he is willing to mislead the people to get what he wants. Hardly the pillar of Hope and Change he was billed as.

 

[RDD_1210]

Nah just little things like. Health care will reduce costs, Health care wont add to the deficit, My administration will be the most transparent ever, Ill wont talk to lobbyists.

You do a good job of attempting to deflect with your talking points, but the American people see right through it.

He's a politician, not God, of course everything he says isn't going to be true. That doesn't mean though just because he is shown to be dishonest about some things, that makes everything he says a lie.

Really, and did you give Bush that same Benefit of the doubt?

Of course, I didn't think the man lied about everything. Some things, sure.....but to be critical of everything he said or did and treat him like everything he said was a lie....never.

 

[Charles_Main]

He's a politician, not God, of course everything he says isn't going to be true. That doesn't mean though just because he is shown to be dishonest about some things, that makes everything he says a lie.

Really, and did you give Bush that same Benefit of the doubt?

Of course, I didn't think the man lied about everything. Some things, sure.....but to be critical of everything he said or did and treat him like everything he said was a lie....never.

Well then, you were a rare bird among most Democrats.

 

[RDD_1210]

Really, and did you give Bush that same Benefit of the doubt?

Of course, I didn't think the man lied about everything. Some things, sure.....but to be critical of everything he said or did and treat him like everything he said was a lie....never.

Well then, you were a rare bird among most Democrats.

I don't know. I didn't care for Bush as most democrats didn't, but I don't know if the majority of Dems actually thought everything he said was a lie.

 

[Charles_Main]

Of course, I didn't think the man lied about everything. Some things, sure.....but to be critical of everything he said or did and treat him like everything he said was a lie....never.

Well then, you were a rare bird among most Democrats.

I don't know. I didn't care for Bush as most democrats didn't, but I don't know if the majority of Dems actually thought everything he said was a lie.

I know they didn't think everything he said was a lie, but they Portrayed him that way.

On a side note, I think the most amazing thing about this Story is that McDonald's offered Benefits in the first place. I would have never guessed that.

 

[Greenbeard]

Meanwhile, while you're sitting on your private insurance and preaching about how much better all the poor people will be now, government coverage is also being reduced by huge chops and sweeps. Flu shots aren't covered. Physicals for school aren't covered. Dentures aren't covered. Eyeglasses aren't covered. And while I can now enroll my grown children on my medical and dental, guess what? My dental only pays for cleanings now, and my co-pays have increased. That's GREAT!

Medicaid benefit design is largely in the hands of states. You can wade through what different states offer here--in 2008, 35 Medicaid programs covered dentures, 44 covered eyeglasses, and while KFF doesn't break it down so far as to display flu shot coverage, Medicaid coverage of flu shots isn't rare. Yes, benefits take a hit during recessions as the Medicaid rolls swell and state budgets are strained; if that's your complaint, it sounds like you'd prefer taking control of Medicaid programs out of state hands (Medicare benefits, for example, don't ebb and flow with economic conditions). Do you want to see more comprehensive and less volatile Medicaid benefit packages?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

From the OP linked article.
\Last week, a senior McDonald's official informed the Department of Health and Human Services that the restaurant chain's insurer won't meet a 2011 requirement to spend at least 80% to 85% of its premium revenue on medical care. \

So McDonalds is charging too much for insurance? That means instead of dropping rates they cancel the coverage?

How typical.

The policies that McDonald's offers have a higher than normal medical loss ratios because McDonald's employees tend to be younger, and thus make fewer claims, and they also have a higher turnover ratio, which drives up administrative costs. Your solution to this is to force them to loose money by charging less, which just indicates why you do not run a business of any type.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

This is exactly what we said would happen. Obamacare is herding the masses into state managed, CRAPPY health insurance, and eliminating the quality private health insurance. It's bullshit and it will be repealed, hopefully.

Mini-med plans are your definition of "the quality private health insurance"?

McDonald’s doesn’t plan to drop health-care coverage for employees, said Danya Proud, a spokeswoman for the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company, in an interview yesterday. She declined to provide a memo sent to U.S. Health and Human Services in which McDonald’s requested the waiver, saying the correspondence is proprietary

McDonald's Seeks Waiver Over New Health-Care Law, Official Says - Bloomberg

People seem to be missing this point.

They are my definition of better than average for the industry and age group.

What is the point we are missing?

 

[uscitizen]

From the OP linked article.
\Last week, a senior McDonald's official informed the Department of Health and Human Services that the restaurant chain's insurer won't meet a 2011 requirement to spend at least 80% to 85% of its premium revenue on medical care. \

So McDonalds is charging too much for insurance? That means instead of dropping rates they cancel the coverage?

How typical.

The policies that McDonald's offers have a higher than normal medical loss ratios because McDonald's employees tend to be younger, and thus make fewer claims, and they also have a higher turnover ratio, which drives up administrative costs. Your solution to this is to force them to loose money by charging less, which just indicates why you do not run a business of any type.

I did very well in a few business ventures.
I sold my last one to the employees.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

what I said before reduce administrative costs.
And lower payouts reduce administrative costs as well.


How big is this plan? How many participate?

So your advocating overseas job transfers, longer claims settelments and increasing benefit qualification periods?

It appears this is mostly a non issue since kids will be covered up to 26 by parents under the healthcare reform. What is the average age of McDonalds workers? Outside of headquarters that is which I figure is an entirely different set of benefits.

Are we talking coverage here for POS workers or corporate ones?

also does McDonalds contribute to the workers insurance costs? Or is this entirely employee borne premiums?

Does anyone realize this is optional?

Insurers are required to offer the policy, but no one is making the parents pay to keep their kids covered until 26. That means that at least some parents, perhaps most, will opt to drop their kids as soon as possible to save their own money.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

It appears this is mostly a non issue since kids will be covered up to 26 by parents under the healthcare reform. What is the average age of McDonalds workers? Outside of headquarters that is which I figure is an entirely different set of benefits.

Are we talking coverage here for POS workers or corporate ones?

also does McDonalds contribute to the workers insurance costs? Or is this entirely employee borne premiums?

Educate yourself before making blanket statements please. We are discussing hourly workers with limited medical benefits who often don't stay long. Hence, part of the payout problem. My comments were addressing your adminstrative costs reduction comment. I listed three ways you can do that. You didn't respond to any of them, but deflected.

I posted earlier about making the administrative portion more efficient so it draws less of a percentage.

You deflected as well from my line of thought to fearisms like outsourcing, inconvenience, etc without knowing how the admin system is structured or top heavy, etc.

They can actually eliminate the overhead entirely if they want, that will not ensure that the medical loss ration will drop below the legal threshold. That would actually require the workers to make more claims. Should McDonald's have a policy of spreading disease around the workplace in order to drive the medical loss ratio down?

 

[Greenbeard]

What is the point we are missing?

The beauty of quotes is that questions like this are unnecessary. The point being ignored would be the one I quoted above my own text. In particular, "McDonald’s doesn’t plan to drop health-care coverage for employees, said Danya Proud, a spokeswoman for the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company, in an interview yesterday."

The title and premise of this thread are incorrect.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

From the OP linked article.
\Last week, a senior McDonald's official informed the Department of Health and Human Services that the restaurant chain's insurer won't meet a 2011 requirement to spend at least 80% to 85% of its premium revenue on medical care. \

So McDonalds is charging too much for insurance? That means instead of dropping rates they cancel the coverage?

How typical.

The policies that McDonald's offers have a higher than normal medical loss ratios because McDonald's employees tend to be younger, and thus make fewer claims, and they also have a higher turnover ratio, which drives up administrative costs. Your solution to this is to force them to loose money by charging less, which just indicates why you do not run a business of any type.

I did very well in a few business ventures.
I sold my last one to the employees.

Then why do you keep talking about administrative cost like those are the deciding factor here.

The 80 to 85% figure is a requirement that that much of the premium actually be spent on health care costs. If a person buys a policy and never uses it exactly 0% of his premiums will be spent on health care. Obviously that is an unusual occurrence, but it illustrates that you are totally out of whack in claiming that all insurers have to do is make the admin side of things more efficient. This law actually requires insurers to pay out more in benefits regardless of how efficient the administration of the plan is, or how little their customers actually need the plan.

Would you allow the government to step in and impose arbitrary standards on your company using equations that require you to reduce profit in a way that has nothing to do with sound business practices? If not, why do you support them doing so with other companies?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

What is the point we are missing?

The beauty of quotes is that questions like this are unnecessary. The point being ignored would be the one I quoted above my own text. In particular, "McDonald’s doesn’t plan to drop health-care coverage for employees, said Danya Proud, a spokeswoman for the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company, in an interview yesterday."

The title and premise of this thread are incorrect.

I thought that was what you were getting at, but I wanted to be sure.

The real point here is it does not matter what MsDonald's intentions are, if they do not get the waiver they are asking for they will be forced to drop coverage for their employees because no one will offer a pan that they can sell to them.

Even DHS knows this, and is working very hard to exempt as many companies as possible form the new law.

Federal officials say there's no guarantee they can grant mini-med carriers a waiver. They say the answer may not come by November, when many employers require employees to sign up for the coming year's benefits.
The government is waiting for the association of state insurance commissioners to draft recommendations. The head of the association's health-insurance committee, Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger, said she doesn't think these types of mini-med plans deserve an exemption.
"If they are sold as comprehensive coverage, we expect them to meet the same [medical-loss ratio] standards as other health plans," she said.

McDonald's Says It May Drop Health Plan - WSJ.com

This tells me that while you are busy telling me I have no idea what I am talking about the administration is working overtime to make sure everything that people like me see is patched over and buried in exemptions. If this law worked the way it was intended no one would have to carve exceptions out of it.

To bad for them the states are the ones who make the decision.

So tell me, which one of us missed the point?

 

[Greenbeard]

The 80 to 85% figure is a requirement that that much of the premium actually be spent on health care costs. If a person buys a policy and never uses it exactly 0% of his premiums will be spent on health care.

The entire point of the NAIC's current exercise (which isn't done, by the way) is to define what kinds of spending count toward the medical loss ratio. It goes much further than just benefit payouts; it'll include quality improvement efforts, HIT investments, fraud prevention measures, and so on. The draft blanks the NAIC approved six week ago have pages of these things. The medical loss ratio requires them to spend on activities and investment that increase value for premium-payers, not just straight benefit payouts.

This tells me that while you are busy telling me I have no idea what I am talking about the administration is working overtime to make sure everything that people like me see is patched over and buried in exemptions. If this law worked the way it was intended no one would have to carve exceptions out of it.

I realize this is probably the first time most people have ever watched the administrative rulemaking process in action but this is how it works. Congress sets relatively broad goals (in this case, better use of premium revenue) and leaves it to experts to fill in the details. For this one, that involves regulators in HHS, NAIC staff, and representatives of the business and insurance industries and anyone else affected by the legislation (as always, anyone can provide input on proposals).

But it's disappointing to the see the unfortunate effects of the 24-hour news cycle on people's brains--they're completely fried. Not everything is a crisis, nor is there anything wrong with exemptions or variations on a rule for plans with special characteristics. Regulations are not a patch, they are the law. Actual legislation is always too vague to be of practical use, since legislators don't possess the technical knowledge to to work out in excruciating detail how to make grand policy ideas work. Presumably somebody still teaches high school government classes.

Anyway, the law specifically says:

Definitions- Not later than December 31, 2010, and subject to the certification of the Secretary, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners shall establish uniform definitions of the activities reported under subsection (a) and standardized methodologies for calculating measures of such activities, including definitions of which activities, and in what regard such activities, constitute activities described in subsection (a)(2). Such methodologies shall be designed to take into account the special circumstances of smaller plans, different types of plans, and newer plans.​

What a failure! They said "come up with a definition of medical loss ratio that requires more spending more premium money on worthwhile activities but take into account that not all plans are created equal." That, as you may have gathered, is the part regulators are at right now.

You people need to relax. Stop flipping out over every news story. This reminds me of the uproar on here when it was suggested in the media that the uncapping of benefit limits would destroy mini-med plans. Guess what? It didn't. The regulations treated them as what they are: different than regular insurance plans.

 

[saveliberty]

"Such methodologies shall be designed to take into account the special circumstances of smaller plans, different types of plans, and newer plans."

McDonald's plan is NOT small, new or substantially different than many other companies with minimum wage employees. This is simply the government coming to grips with a bad law.

McDonald's is smart enough to send a signal to Washington while keeping its employees relatively calm in the interim.

In the end, without a rule change, McDonald's and many other companies will drop coverage.

 

[Greenbeard]

"Such methodologies shall be designed to take into account the special circumstances of smaller plans, different types of plans, and newer plans."

McDonald's plan is NOT small, new or substantially different than many other companies with minimum wage employees. This is simply the government coming to grips with a bad law.

What part of "take into account different types" is confusing you? That explicitly says that final rules need not, and should not, be one-size-fits-all. If mini-med plans will have valid difficulties with medical loss ratio requirements, that would certainly qualify them for a closer look. And Jay Angoff has said as much.

In the end, without a rule change, McDonald's and many other companies will drop coverage.

No "rule change" is needed because there currently is no rule.

 

[saveliberty]

"Such methodologies shall be designed to take into account the special circumstances of smaller plans, different types of plans, and newer plans."

McDonald's plan is NOT small, new or substantially different than many other companies with minimum wage employees. This is simply the government coming to grips with a bad law.

What part of "take into account different types" is confusing you? That explicitly says that final rules need not, and should not, be one-size-fits-all. If mini-med plans will have valid difficulties with medical loss ratio requirements, that would certainly qualify them for a closer look. And Jay Angoff has said as much.

In the end, without a rule change, McDonald's and many other companies will drop coverage.

No "rule change" is needed because there currently is no rule.

Balancing on the side of a dime there I see. There is a law and it will require a change to keep McDonald's in compliance. Be honest. You also know that this type of plan is far from different. Many corporation are using it. Hair spliting defenses are usually the playground of the losing debate side. Run along to the slide Greenbeard.

 

[mal]

McDonald's May Drop Health Plan

McDonald's Corp. has warned federal regulators that it could drop its health insurance plan for nearly 30,000 hourly restaurant workers unless regulators waive a new requirement of the U.S. health overhaul.

McDonald's Says It May Drop Health Plan - WSJ.com

McDonald's and trade groups say the percentage, called a medical loss ratio, is unrealistic for mini-med plans because of high administrative costs owing to frequent worker turnover, combined with relatively low spending on claims.

They may have to drop coverage because of the law-- this is what is being called an unintended consequence of Obamacare. They offer cheap insurance when many and now the payout will not meet with federal guidelines.

It's not about what Actually Happens, it's about Good Intentions!

And Beleive me, they had the Best of Intentions!...

I'm Certain that Obammy and the DemocRATS weren't Thinking about Trying to Secure Generations of Voters with yet ANOTHER Giveaway at the Expense of other People!



peace...