Wal-Mart Eliminates Health Care Coverage for 30,000 Part-Time Employees

Wal-Mart  no longer offers health insurance to employees who are working less than an average of 30 hours per week.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. eliminated health insurance coverage for most of its part-time U.S. employees in an action aimed at controlling rising health care costs of the nation’s largest private employer.
This directive affects 30,000 employees, and follows similar moves by Target, Home Depot and others to deny health insurance benefits for part-time employees.
Wal-Mart has been scaling down the eligibility for part-time workers over the last few years. Wal-Mart is also increasing premiums, or out-of-pocket expenses that employees pay, to account for rising health-care costs and plans to raise premiums for all of its full-time workers.
The changes in Wal-Marts co-insurance policies are being cut back to 75% from 80%. This affects the percentage of coverage workers pay before their coverage kicks in on eligible costs of doctor visits, tests, hospitalization and other services within the network after employees meet their deductible.