...well, it matters to me, at least.
In 2014, retail giant Target announced that they would no
longer offer healthcare benefits to part time employees, instead directing
them to the newly formed ACA exchanges. Their rationale at the time was that “by
offering them insurance, we could actually disqualify many of them from being
eligible for newly available subsidies that could reduce their overall health
insurance expense."
At the time this decision was made, Target was still doing
quite well and was profitable, though their earnings year over year had
declined slightly. They hadn’t yet felt the full effect of their credit card
breach, so this was not a reaction to adverse market conditions: this was purely
a calculated business decision. When you look at it at face value, it makes
sense for Target to do what it can to lower costs to compete in an already
tight retail sector. But in reality what happened was that Target took its
internal cost of providing benefits, previously paid for by consumers through
retail pricing, and passed it along to everyone,
not just their customers.
