Walmart Healthcare Cuts “Beginning of the Deluge”

(ATLANTA, GA) – The chief executives of Job Creators Network criticized the Affordable Care Act as the root cause of Walmart’s  decision to cut healthcare to part-time workers, calling this “the beginning of a deluge of cutbacks forced by the failing healthcare law.”

Walmart Stores, the world’s largest retailer and the nation’s largest private employer, said on Tuesday that it would terminate health insurance coverage for about 30,000 part-time workers. This was the most recent announcement from a growing list of companies that have rolled back benefits in response to the Affordable Care Act.

“Defenders of the Affordable Care Act can’t sugar coat it: 30,000 Walmart workers lost their health care due to the new law,” former Behr Processing president and CEO Ronald Lazof said. “Fall is also the season of corporate healthcare plan changes, so the Walmart announcement may be the beginning of a deluge of cutbacks forced by the failing healthcare law.”

The Obama administration announced in February another delay in implementation of part of the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate, including the mandate’s penalty for small businesses with 50-99 workers. Today, businesses with 100 employees or more must offer coverage to at least 70 percent of full-time workers in 2015 and 95 percent in 2016, or face a penalty. These mandates are dramatically impacting the forecasting, hiring and healthcare decisions of most American employers.

“The Walmart announcement was a terrible development and we can count on a steady diet of bad news in the months ahead,” said Lazof, who is also a founding member of Job Creators Network. “The Affordable Care Act is pushing Americans into part-time employment and forcing employers to cut healthcare for the very same employees – more proof bad public policy hurts good people.”

ABOUT JOB CREATORS NETWORK

Job Creators Network (JCN) is the voice of real job creators that has been missing from the debate on jobs and our economic crisis. JCN members talk about paychecks, not politics, helping the public and policymakers understand how to create jobs. For more information please visit www.JobCreatorsNetwork.com.

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