Home Depot is eliminating the limited medical insurance it offers its many part-time employees, forcing those workers to seek coverage from new public insurance marketplaces that open Oct. 1 or face a penalty.
The Atlanta-based retailing giant said its move is in reaction to the new law on health care coverage, the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
Home Depot joins a growing list of corporations that have sliced or shifted their employee health insurance offerings, some citing potential savings and others pointing to better employee benefits.
The change affects about 20,000 part-time Home Depot workers nationwide who take the insurance coverage. Some part-time workers do not take the coverage. The company has about 340,000 employees, but the retailer would not say how many are part-time.
The company would not disclose how much it will save by dropping the insurance. Spokesman Stephen Holmes said, “We do not believe the impact of ACA will be material to the company’s financials.”
Some experts say the move to send workers to health care exchanges could improve the coverage options available to them.
“What they are doing makes a lot of sense for their part-time employees,” said David Bottoms, senior vice president at the Bottoms Group, an Atlanta employee benefits consultant. “While I am not privy to the benefit details on their particular limited benefit plan, this move will enable their part-time employees to secure richer coverage than that being provided on the limited-benefit plan while also benefiting from government premium subsidies.”
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