A TRULY BIG MAC – AT 8:05 A.M. ET:  A day after thousands of Massachusetts seniors learned they'd be losing part of their health insurance under the "reforms" of Obamacare, one of the most famous names in American business warns that uncertain times may be coming for its own employees because of the same "reforms."  From Fox:

McDonald's Corp. has notified federal regulators its health insurance plan for nearly 30,000 hourly restaurant workers isn't compatible with a new requirement of the U.S. health overhaul, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday, raising speculation about the fate of those employees' health coverage.

Trade groups representing restaurants and retailers say low-wage employers might halt their coverage if the government doesn't loosen a requirement for "mini-med" plans, which offer limited benefits to some 1.4 million Americans. The requirement concerns the percentage of premiums that must be spent on benefits.

While many restaurants don't offer health coverage, McDonald's provides mini-med plans for workers at 10,500 U.S. locations, most of them franchised. A single worker can pay $14 a week for a plan that caps annual benefits at $2,000, or about $32 a week to get coverage up to $10,000 a year.

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 percent to 85 percent of its premium revenue on medical care, the Wall Street Journal reported.

But McDonald's issued a statement Wednesday denying that it planned to drop coverage for its employees and defending its benefit plans.

COMMENT:  Now just wait.  Weren't we told we could keep our existing plans?  The McDonald's plan is pretty minimal, as you can see, but for some workers, especially young, healthy ones, it may be right.  Now that plan is in jeopardy and dependent on federal regulators for its existence. 

Well, maybe we would have been alerted had we just looked at page 843 of the Obamacare bill.  But, you know, we had to get to work that day.

COMMENT:  There's a lot of disruption coming, and I get the sense, from recent stories, that many people who can least afford it will be paying more and getting less.

September 30, 2010