Obamashock! Hits Employees of Sodexo, "World's Largest Quality of Life" Service Company

Some employees of Sodexo, the "World's largest quality of life services company" have been hit with a massive case of "Obamashock!" because of the way Obamacare identifies part-time employment.

An email from reader "Mark" will explain.

Hello Mish

I thought you would be interested in another new angle regarding fallout from the ACA.

Yesterday we received a notice of cancellation of our eligibility in the large group health plan through my wife's employer.  They state that this is due to the Affordable Care Act.

My wife has worked for Sodexo, USA for about 3 years.Sodexo is a contract food service provider at literally thousands of institutions around the world. Her job is at a small private college in Iowa.

The notice we received states that, "Sodexo has aligned how we define full-time employees eligible for benefits with the Affordable Care Act". As such, she no longer qualifies as a full time employee, and can no longer be part of the benefit plan, as of January 1, 2014.

The new definition is that a full time employee must average 30 hours a week over the past 12 months. The cafeteria at a private college is not open 12 months of the year, and does not operate an average of 30 hours per week over 12 months. It is impossible to attain this number of hours when they are not available.

I am self employed. We will not qualify for any 'exchange subsidies'. She worked this just over minimum wage job solely for access to the health plan.

Now our options seem to be either to pay $19,600.52 per year for the COBRA plan, or $12,636 for an individual family plan with a deductible that is 3 times our current plan.

We are definitely in Obamashock!

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com