Walmart Drops Health Benefits for Most Part

Jae C. Hong/APBy ANNE D'INNOCENZIO

NEW YORK -- Walmart Stores ( WMT) plans to eliminate health insurance coverage for most of its part-time U.S. employees in a move aimed at controlling rising health care costs of the nation's largest private employer.

Starting Jan. 1, Walmart told HEALTHYINSURANCENEWS.BLOGSPOT.COM that it will no longer offer health insurance to employees who work less than an average of 30 hours a week. The move, which would affect 30,000 employees, follows similar decisions by Target ( TGT), Home Depot ( HD) and others to eliminate health insurance benefits for part-time employees.

'We had to make some tough decisions,' Sally Wellborn, Walmart's senior vice president of benefits, told HEALTHYINSURANCENEWS.BLOGSPOT.COM.

We are trying to balance the needs of [workers] as well as the costs of [workers] as well as the cost to Walmart.

Wellborn says the company will use a third-party organization to help part-time workers find insurance alternatives: 'We are trying to balance the needs of [workers] as well as the costs of [workers] as well as the cost to Walmart.'

The announcement comes after Walmart said far more U.S. employees and their families are enrolling in its health care plans than it had expected following rollout of the Affordable Care Act. Walmart, which employs about 1.4 million full- and part-time U.S. workers, says about 1.2 million Walmart workers and family members combined now participate in its health care plan.

That has had an impact on Walmart's bottom line. Walmart now expects the impact of higher health care costs to be about $500 million for the current fiscal year, or about $170 million higher than the original estimate of about $330 million that it gave in February.

But Walmart is among the last of its peers to cut health insurance for some part-time workers. In 2013, 62 percent of large retail chains didn't offer health care benefits to any of its part-time workers, according to Mercer, a global consulting company. That's up from 56 percent in 2009.

'Retailers who offer part-time benefits are more of an exception than the rule,' says Beth Umland, director of research for health and benefits at Mercer.

Walmart has been scaling back eligibility for part-time workers over the past few years, though. In 2011, Walmart said it was cutting backing eligibility of its coverage of part-time workers working less than 24 hours a week. And then in 2013, it announced a threshold of 30 hours or under.

Walmart, like most big companies, also is increasing premiums, or out-of-pocket costs that employees pay, to counter rising health care costs. Walmart told HEALTHYINSURANCENEWS.BLOGSPOT.COM that it's raising premiums for all of its full-time workers: For a basic plan, of which 40 percent of its workers are enrolled, the premiums will go up to $21.90 each pay period, up from $18.40, starting Jan. 1.

Walmart also said that changes in the co-insurance, or the percentage workers pay before coverage kicks in, for the health reimbursement accounts and the health savings accounts will result in the company paying 75 percent of the eligible costs of doctor visits, tests, hospitalization and other services within the network after employees meet their deductible. That's down from 80 percent.