This is terrific news! ~ Disney earns a ~ emphasis/bolding below is mine ~ Sooz

Under Obamacare, Disney World Will Promote Its Part-Time Workers To Full-Time Status
By Sy Mukherjee on October 2, 2013 at 11:26 am

The happiest place on earth just got a little happier.

Walt Disney Co. announced on Wednesday that it is offering full-time employment to the 427 part-time employees at its Disney World theme park in Orlando, Florida who work at least 30 hours per week — the threshold at which the Affordable Care Act requires large employers with 50 or more workers to offer basic health benefits to employees or risk paying a $2,000 per employee fine after the first 30 workers.

Disney already offers a level of health coverage that is acceptable under Obamacare to its full-time employees. But part-time workers, including those who work at the 30-hour cutoff set by the health law, receive more limited benefits. Instead of rolling back these workers’ hours to avoid expanding their health coverage, Disney is choosing to promote them to full-time status.

“Disney wants to be proactive,” said Ed Chambers, president of the Service Trades Council union that represents tens of thousands of Orlando Disney employees, in an interview with Bloomberg News. “Disney is way out in front on this.”

That’s a striking departure from some retail and service sector firms that have used Obamacare’s employee coverage requirement as an excuse to cut hours and benefits. While the vast majority of firms are not engaging in such tactics, high-profile stories about companies that do adopt that approach tend to dominate media coverage.

In fact, Disney’s decision tracks with a recent survey of chief financial officers at large American firms finding that American companies actually intend to increase their number of full-time employees by almost 2 percent over the next year, despite repeated claims by Obamacare critics that the reform law will create a part-time economy, discourage hiring, or encourage employers to roll back workers’ hours to avoid Obamacare.

Those claims have not borne out in reality. According to an analysis by Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in July, just 0.6 percent of the American labor force worked between 26 and 29 hours per week in 2013 — the level of work that employers would be expected to roll back their workers’ hours to if they were trying to bypass Obamacare.

Furthermore, less than a third of workers say they are working less than 30 hours because of an employers’ decision, with most choosing to work a limited number of hours out of personal preference. That led CEPR researchers to conclude that the employment trend “is in the wrong direction for the ACA as job-killer story.”

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/02/2716951/disney-world-obamacare-promote-full-time/

THIS is the GOP/TPers' nightmare scenario ~ YAYYY!!! ~ ~ Sooz

Meet Butch Matthews, A Republican Who Came To Love Obamacare After Realizing It Will Save Him $13,000
By Sy Mukherjee on October 2, 2013 at 4:52 pm

Butch Matthews is a 61-year-old former small business owner from Little Rock, Arkansas who used to wake up every morning at 4 A.M. to deliver canned beverages to retailers before retiring in 2010. A lifelong Republican, he was heavily skeptical of the Affordable Care Act when it first passed. “I did not think that Obamacare was going to be a good plan, I did not think that it was going to help me at all,” he told ThinkProgress over the phone.

But after doing a little research, Matthews eventually realized how much the law could help him. And on Tuesday, his local Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) provider confirmed that he would be able to buy a far better plan than his current policy while saving at least $13,000 per year through Arkansas’ Obamacare marketplace.

Matthews was self-employed between 1997 and 2010, meaning he had to purchase his own plan on the individual market. He chose a Blue Cross Blue Shield plan for himself and his wife that charged a $250 per month premium and had a $2,000 deductible. But the price of that policy kept rising even as it covered fewer of his costs, eventually devolving into his current rate of $1,069 per month with a $10,000 deductible. At this point, it doesn’t even cover his medication or doctors’ visits — particularly concerning considering he had to have two stents placed in his heart in 2006.

“I do not work now, I’m 61, and we do have assets saved up. But still, to come up with that $1,069 per month….” he said, trailing off. “I went to Blue Cross Blue Shield, and they don’t even sell that plan anymore, but I could not change it to anything else. So I was locked in with it.”

That all changed once Obamacare’s state-level marketplaces opened to the public on Tuesday. Matthews knew that, at his income level, the law would help him pay for insurance. But even he might not have expected just how good of a deal he could get: his new coverage will cost him absolutely nothing in monthly premiums after factoring in federal subsidies, and has a deductible of $750.

“Which is a lot different from $10,000,” he pointed out, laughing.

The mid-level “Silver” policy that he picked out also offers a significantly better benefits package. “It’s a lot better plan,” Matthews said. His old plan was considered to be “Bronze” and had much higher co-pays. Under Obamacare, when Matthews visits a doctor, it will no longer cost him around $150. It will cost $8.

So what would Matthews tell other Americans who are skeptical about Obamacare? “I would tell them to learn more about it before they start talking bad about it,” he noted. “Be more informed, get more information, take your time and study and not just go by just what you hear on one side or the other. Actually check the facts on it.”

“I still am a very strong Republican, but this… I’m so happy that this came along,” he continued. “Our home is paid for, vehicle’s paid for, this is our expense that we have. We have more expense on medical care than everything else put together, so this is going to be a great help for us.”

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/02/2721501/butch-matthews-obamacare-convert/

One by one ~ ~ Sooz

How A Rand Paul Republican From Alabama Learned To Love Obamacare
By Igor Volsky on October 4, 2013 at 8:39 am

Joshua Pittman is a 31-year-old self-employed videographer from Montgomery, Alabama. A libertarian Republican who voted for Ron Paul in 2012 and believes that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is the future of the GOP, Pittman sees Barack Obama’s presidency as a “failure” who hasn’t lived up to the nation’s expectations.

But on Tuesday morning, Pittman logged on to HealthCare.gov and after some initial glitches and delays, successfully enrolled in a Bronze-level Obamacare health insurance plan. “It took me all day, really,” he says with a laugh. “It kicked me out and told me you have to try again, but I knew what I was getting into with so many people exploring it.”

Though he initially supported repealing the law, Pittman became curious about Obamacare in the days and weeks before it launched. For years, he had gone uninsured, thinking he’d be able to “get over anything with a bandaid and a six pack of beer.” But a lead poisoning incident earlier this year shook his confidence and bank account, leading him with tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills. “I was a healthy person and it really depleted me financially, so it made me look at things in a different way than I would before. I understood the importance of people being insured.”

“I’ve seen first hand people hitting up the emergency room for free health care and then putting a burden on [everyone else] and that’s not something I would want to do, I want to take personal responsibility … By no means am I trying to take a government handout…it’s not a free handout, you’re paying for this health care, but it’s making it more accessible to more people.”

Asked what he liked about Obamacare, Pittman highlighted its prohibition against denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, noting that he wouldn’t be able to find coverage without it, and said that the policies offered in the marketplace seemed more affordable and comprehensive than those available to him on the individual market. “You may pay $18 a month [for a cheaper plan] and you’re missing level of coverage. It’s not as easy as you’re going to pay this much a month,” he says.

Government data shows that premiums for an individual Blue Cross and Blue Shield Bronze-level plan in Montgomery County, Alabama averages $160 per month for a 27-year old. An older adult will pay $273 per month.

Pittman doesn’t believe that Obamacare is perfect, but says Republicans in Congress should stop trying to repeal the law and give it a chance to work. “As a Republican, I think [the GOP's repeal effort] is childish and I think this is the wrong way to lead… it’s babyish and I think as a party it just reflects negatively upon us,” he explains.

He predicts that other conservatives will set aside their party politics and do what they feel is best for themselves and their families. “I think there are Republicans that are all types of people who are making these decisions and they’re not basing them on political party. It’s just common sense kind of things. And I think that’s the only way we’re going to make a change in this country if people start thinking on those lines, instead of political party lines.”

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/04/2730801/joshua-pittman/

If you want to save "Obamacare" - stop calling it Obamacare. The name was coined by its opponents. Why give them the tool to destroy it?

i think it is a bad tactic, too- but it is very confrontational, as well.

It's the Affordable Care Act. Highlight the affordable.

Anyone believe Rove's/AmericanCrossroad's "omission" of critical facts was not intentional and simply a mistake? ~ ~ emphasis/bolding below is mine ~ Sooz

Leaving the uninsured behind
By Steve Benen - Fri Oct 4, 2013 11:30 AM EDT

In early August, reflecting on Republican tactics, President Obama told reporters, "Their number one priority, the one unifying principle in the Republican Party at this moment, is making sure that 30 million people don't have health care." It was an argument that had the benefit of being true.

But Karl Rove's attack operation, American Crossroads, pushed a different message. Shortly after the White House press conference, Crossroads sent a message to reporters, claiming, "CBO states that under Obamacare, we'll still have 30 million uninsured in 10 years." The Republican group added that the White House's policy "isn't even solving the problem of uninsured."

It was one of those arguments predicated on the assumption that political reporters are fools. What Crossroads failed to mention is that the CBO report said we'll still have tens of millions of uninsured in 10 years, even after "Obamacare" is fully implemented, because several Republican governors refuse to expand Medicaid. (The Republican operatives at American Crossroads, in other words, were indirectly attacking Republicans for denying Americans health care benefits.)

Whether Rove's attack operation understands this or not, the policy is a tragedy -- which the White House is powerless to fix.


The Affordable Care Act originally made Medicaid expansion mandatory for states, guaranteeing coverage for millions, but a narrow Supreme Court majority ruled that it must be optional -- if states want to take advantage of an amazing deal they could, but if they choose to turn down the federal money, Washington can't force them to accept it.

In fairness, it's not strictly a partisan issue, and several Republican governors have both a moral compass and a healthy enough understanding of arithmetic that they welcomed Medicaid expansion in their states.

But with most of the South rejecting the policy -- most notably Texas, the state with the highest percentage of uninsured Americans in the nation -- the result is millions of struggling families who'll go without access to basic, affordable care, which they would otherwise get if they didn't live in a "red" state.

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/10/04/20819745-leaving-the-uninsured-behind