Target's decision to move its part-time workers from its own insurance program to Obamacare likely marks the opening of the floodgates for other companies to do the same, potentially pushing tens of thousands of Bay State part-timers onto government-sanctioned health care by this summer, experts said.
"Before June of this year, you're going to see a migration of 100,000 to 200,000 Massachusetts residents" said Bill Fields, an employer consultant, describing the expected shift from employer-sponsored insurance to the state Health Connector.
Target announced this week it will no longer provide health insurance for its part-time employees.
"Health-care reform is transforming the benefits landscape and affecting how all employers, including Target, administer health benefits coverage," said Jodee Kozlack, Target's executive vice president of human resources, in a statement. "Our decision to discontinue this benefit comes after careful consideration of the impact on our stores' part-time team members and to Target, the new options available for our part-time team, and the historically low number of team members who elected to enroll in the part-time plan."
Target says fewer than 10 percent of its 361,000 part-timers are enrolled in its plan. The statement said if Target continued to offer health insurance for part-time employees, some workers could be disqualified from Obamacare subsidies they might otherwise be entitled to receive.
Fields predicted there could be a ripple effect.
"Once they see their neighbor doing it, you're going to see a lot of copycats," Fields said about companies that employ part-timers.
Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, said Romneycare prompted a similar trend.
"Around 2008 or 2009, we recommended to all of our members that they drop coverage for part-timers. It rapidly happened," Hurst said.
But Fields said he advises his clients to keep insurance for part-timers, and he said companies that do not are making a cold, fiscal decision.
"It's a bottom-line argument," Fields said. "You don't have the morals you normally have in these situations."
The total number of part-time employees in Massachusetts was not immediately available.
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