UPS Cancels Insurance For Working Spouses Of Employees--The First Of Many To Lose Insurance

UPS Spouses Lose Insurance Coverage Thanks To Obamacare

December 2, 2013 by Sam Rolley 

 16 9

 

 1 94

One of the busiest seasons of the year has begun for employees of United Parcel Service (UPS). And as the company’s employees scramble to deliver gifts to doorsteps throughout the Nation , 15,000 of them will do so with the new knowledge that Obamacare has taken away health insurance for their spouses.

An internal UPS memo recently obtained byKaiser Health International informs 15,000 non-union employees that their working spouses will no longer be covered by UPS  insurance plans due to changes under Obamacare if their spouse is eligible for insurance offered by an employer.

“We believe your spouse should be covered by their own employer — just as UPS has a responsibility to offer coverage to you, our employee,” the memo says.

Employee spouses who don’t work, or are not eligible for employer provided healthcare, are able to remain on the UPS plan.

“We are making these changes to offset cost increases due to the [Affordable Care Act],” the memo states.

Other UPS workers are unionized under the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and are insured under a separate union health plan.

UPS Chief Financial Officer Kurt Kuehn appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Monday, confirming the change to host Becky Quick:

BECKY QUICK: Kurt, can I ask you while you’re here, too, there was some news that you all made about dropping benefits for 15,000 spouses of your employees. You cited that back to Obamacare. What happened?

KURY KUEHN: What we did, actually, was just say — the spouse of one of our employees that is employed and their employer offers health care insurance, then we would expect that employer to cover their insurance. So we didn’t drop health care coverage for anybody that couldn’t get health care. And what — then what we did –

QUICK: What does that have to do with Obamacare?

KUEHN: Well, the Obamacare mandates did increase and do increase costs for UPS. We’re managing health care inflation plus some of the increased coverage mandates led us to make a decision that now that we know that most employers will provide health care, it made sense for that employer to cover the cost of that benefit.