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This topic comprises 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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Author
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Topic: Regal cuts employee hours to stay out of Obamacare
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Mitchell Dvoskin
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1869
From: West Milford, NJ, USA
Registered: Jan 2001
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posted 04-15-2013 03:36 PM
Fox News
quote: Fox News
The nation's largest movie theater chain has cut the hours of thousands of employees, saying in a company memo that ObamaCare requirements are to blame.
Regal Entertainment Group, which operates more than 500 theaters in 38 states, last month rolled back shifts for non-salaried workers to 30 hours per week, putting them under the threshold at which employers are required to provide health insurance. The Nashville-based company said in a letter to managers that the move was a direct result of ObamaCare.
“To comply with the Affordable Care Act, Regal had to increase our health care budget to cover those newly deemed eligible based on the law's definition of a full time employee.”
- Memo sent to managers of Regal theaters
“In addition, some managers have requested guidance on what they should tell those employees negatively impacted and, at your discretion, we suggest the following,” read the memo obtained by FoxNews.com. “To comply with the Affordable Care Act, Regal had to increase our health care budget to cover those newly deemed eligible based on the law's definition of a full-time employee.”
“To manage this budget, all other employees will be scheduled in accord with business needs and in a manner that will not negatively impact our health care budget,” the message continues.
Regal, which had revenue of $2.8 billion in 2011, is the latest company to respond this way to the Affordable Health Care Act's requirement that employees at companies of a certain size who work more than 30 hours per week be provided health coverage. Applebee's and Olive Garden also scaled back the hours of workers. A handful of colleges have cut hours because of the law, including Palm Beach State College in Florida and New Jersey’s Kean University. Critics say the law is boomeranging on working folks.
"If you want to have reduced work, lower wages and economic stagnation, this is a great way to do it, said Ed Haislmaier, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
One Regal theater manager told FoxNews.com the move has sparked a wave of resignations from full-time managers who have seen their hours cut by 25 percent or more.
“In the last couple weeks, managers have been quitting on a daily basis from various locations to try and find full-time work,” said the manager, who asked not to be named. “Regal up until now has never restricted anyone to anything below 40 hours.”
The manager told FoxNews.com ObamaCare has had the unintended consequence of taking food off his table.
“Mandating businesses to offer health care under threat of debilitating fines does not fix a problem, it creates one," he said. "It fosters a new business culture where 30 hours is now considered the maximum in order to avoid paying the high costs associated with this law.
“In a time where 40 hours is just getting us by, putting these kind of financial pressures on employers is a big step in a direction far beyond the reach of feasibility for not only the businesses, but for the employees who rely on their success," he said.
Regal, which operates cinemas under the names Regal Cinemas, Edwards Theatres and United Artists Theaters and recently purchased Oregon-based Hollywood Theaters for $191 million, did not respond to repeated requests for comment from FoxNews.com. The publicly-traded company's stock has risen nearly 30 percent over the last year.
In addition to the movie theater chain and several restaurants, the state of Virginia also rolled back the hours of all part-time employees back to 29 per week in February, with officials from the state claiming that the new mandate would cost the state tens of millions of dollars a year.
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Michael McGovern
Film Handler
Posts: 57
From: New Britain, CT, USA
Registered: May 2008
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posted 04-15-2013 10:01 PM
This story is absolutely 100% correct, Regal no longer allowed part time staff to work more than an average of 30 hours. Seeing as most locations only have at most, 3 or 4 full time managers including the GM, this is a pretty major change. I haven't worked for Regal in years, but when I did, they did offer insurance for part time employees, but it was expensive and had very high copays and deductibles, so it almost wasn't even worth having.
I don't really have much to comment on this story without derailing this thread into political territory which isn't allowed here, but this isn't going to do much to help Regal which was a company that in my opinion at least, was always quite hostile towards their employees.
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 04-16-2013 09:49 AM
quote: Steve Guttag
Since the goal is 100% health care coverage, the designation of full-time/part-time should not factor in
This is true -- however the biggest problem with the whole health care thing is this: People want something for nothing. They want health care but they think it should be free, or that their employer should just pay for it and absorb the cost.
Everyone seems to think their employer, especially if it's a big company, has bottomless pockets. Well they are NOT bottomless, and there's no guarantee that even a big company can afford to just up and pay for everybody's health insurance -- unless they raise prices, which competition makes difficult. Even if they cut the executive salaries, it might not save enough money to pay the tab. So they cut the only place they can: Hours and employees, and if that isn't enough, they start cutting locations.
If you're going to start requiring health insurance for part time employees along with the full time, just watch the prices skyrocket.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 04-16-2013 01:17 PM
quote: Mike Blakesley
This is true -- however the biggest problem with the whole health care thing is this: People want something for nothing. They want health care but they think it should be free, or that their employer should just pay for it and absorb the cost.
Most people want affordable health care. Not free. Affordable. The people who want free health care are probably already getting it for free.
The bigger problem is hardly anyone is doing anything whatsoever to stop the runaway health care price inflation that has already been skyrocketing for 2 decades. The price increases are fantastic if you own a lot of health care related stocks or work high up in a health care related company. The price increases suck everywhere else. The price increases are bad for the general public and they're terrible for any business that's not in the health care industry.
15 years ago I had a really good health insurance policy that had only a $500 deductible. Our company didn't have to pay much for it. Today my deductible is $3500 and the policy basically sucks, but it's all we can afford because the premiums have been going up at a double digit rate of inflation every damned year for close to two decades. We've changed insurance providers 4 times in the last five years. Every time we come around for renewal I brace for the announcement that we're just doing away with the insurance altogether.
The new health care law is doing little if anything to stop the price increases. At the same time the opponents of that law have made zero effort to stop the price increases either. After all, health care is an asset class for investors and profit engine for certain business people. The patients who need the vital service can just go get screwed for all anyone cares.
No one can absorb these non-stop price increases. The government can't do it forever. Look at our national debt. Many businesses can't afford the price increases either, not without raising prices on their own products. It's also silly to expect individuals to foot the bill 100%. In that situation a hell of a lot of people would suddenly have zero to spend on things like trips to the movie theater. They're just working, going home, blowing a hell of a lot on an over-priced health insurance policy and trying to survive on whatever is left of their paycheck. It would be cheaper for me to make payments on a $80,000 sports car than pay for an individual health insurance policy.
This situation is not good for anyone in the long term. It doesn't matter if you're a business owner, employee, stock day trader or whatever. The government, businesses, media and the general public at large keep kicking this can down the road instead of doing anything of meaningful substance. I see this as the most dire situation this country faces. The health care system is in such a bubble I fear that when it pops it's going to pull us into a considerably worse economic mess than the one from which we're still trying to recover.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 04-16-2013 01:57 PM
In relation to Bobby's point, the United States spends 17.9% of its GDP on healthcare (World Health Organisation figures), compared to roughly half that in most other developed countries (9.6% in Britain, for example, but the figure is pretty similar throughout Western Europe, Canada, Japan, Australia and NZ). Yet most of the health indicators (e.g. life expectancy and cases per head of population of serious, chronic diseases) are around the same in the US as they are in other developed countries. So why does America spend around twice the amount of money per capita on healthcare to achieve more or less the same result?
I'm not trying to get into a Michael Moore-style worshipping of state-run healthcare systems scenario here (they can and do go badly wrong), and strongly suspect that the answer to that question is a lot more complicated and with a lot more factors involved than any politician or medical professional is willing to admit. But the skyrocketing figures that Bobby gives certainly starts to explain why the mismatch is so big.
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