Broken Promises

„This month, McDonald's warned that the health-care reform law passed in March could force it to drop health coverage for some 30,000 workers. A few days later, 3M announced that starting in 2013 it will no longer provide health-insurance coverage to its retirees.

That came on the heels of a decision by Harvard Pilgrim, Massachusetts' second-largest insurer, to drop its Medicare Advantage health-insurance program at year's end, forcing 22,000 senior citizens in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine back into traditional Medicare. Then there's the Principal Financial Group, which recently decided it was getting out of the health-insurance business. Roughly 840,000 people will likely lose their insurance as a result.(...)

But other businesses that offer limited-benefit plans known as »mini-meds« may not be so lucky. Those plans have cheaper premiums because they, among other things, restrict the number of covered doctor visits or impose a maximum on insurance payouts in a year. They are particularly popular with part-time, seasonal and low-wage workers in the restaurant and retail industries.

But ObamaCare's new regulations will all but eliminate those plans, so more than a million of those vulnerable workers will likely lose their current insurance. Some could be forced into Medicaid, while others will have to buy much pricier policies than they have today.”