Another One Bites the Dust: 3M to Change Health-Plan Options for Workers

First McDonald's warned federal regulators last week that it could drop its health insurance plan for nearly 30,000 hourly restaurant workers due to Obamacare.

Now this.

3M Co. confirmed it would eventually stop offering its health-insurance plan to retirees, citing the federal health overhaul as a factor.

The changes won't start to phase in until 2013. But they show how companies are beginning to respond to the new law, which should make it easier for people in their 50s and early-60s to find affordable policies on their own. While thousands of employers are tapping new funds from the law to keep retiree plans, 3M illustrates that others may not opt to retain such plans over the next few years

The St. Paul, Minn., manufacturing conglomerate notified employees on Friday that it would change retiree benefits both for those who are too young to qualify for Medicare and for those who qualify for the Medicare program. Both groups will get an unspecified health reimbursement instead of having access to a company-sponsored health plan.

The maker of Post-it notes and Scotch tape said it made the announcement now to give retirees a chance to explore different options during this year's benefit-enrollment period, according to a 3M memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. A 3M spokeswoman, Jacqueline Berry, confirmed the contents of the memo.

"As you know, the recently enacted health care reform law has fundamentally changed the health care insurance market," the memo said. "Health care options in the marketplace have improved, and readily available individual insurance plans in the Medicare marketplace provide benefits more tailored to retirees' personal needs often at lower costs than what they pay for retiree medical coverage through 3M.

"In addition, health care reform has made it more difficult for employers like 3M to provide a plan that will remain competitive," the memo said. The White House says retiree-only plans are largely exempt from new health insurance regulations under the law.

The company didn't specify how many workers would be impacted. It currently has 23,000 U.S. retirees.

WSJ

Demint: The Fired Congress

Senator Jim Demint

BY: Senator Jim Demint

In December, more than a dozen senators will come back to Washington and decide how much more tax money to take from Americans, without being accountable to any of them.

Some companies have a policy that once someone is fired, they aren’t allowed back on the premises out of fear they might do further damage to the company. It’s too bad Congress doesn’t have the same policy. Because before they’re replaced in January, all of the Democrats who are put out of a job in November will be able to come back and rob the nation blind.

More than a dozen senators will come back to Washington and decide how much more tax money to take from Americans, without being accountable to any of them. Higher taxes, cap-and-trade, amnesty, and card check will be top-priority items for the Fired Congress, otherwise known as the lame-duck Congress. They’re also likely to roll unfinished appropriations bills into a massive, pork-stuffed omnibus to snag every last possible earmark on their way out of Washington.

This must not happen. The only acceptable outcome of the lame-duck session is a continuing resolution to keep government operating at current levels of spending and taxation, as I pushed the Senate to do in 2006 after Republicans lost the majority to the Democrats. No last-minute earmarks, no add-ons, no tax increases, and no big deficit spending.

By simply passing a continuing resolution that kept the government funded at current levels until February 2007, Republicans stopped more than 10,000 earmarks from being enacted and prevented big spenders in Congress from wasting billions of dollars on pork-barrel projects. Then, 2007 became the year without earmarks, because when that temporary continuing resolution expired in February, Congress extended it for the rest of the year. We should adopt the same approach during the 2010 lame-duck session.

To stop a wasteful omnibus and instead secure a continuing resolution, Republicans must hold together. Fortunately, the GOP may have a few reinforcements on the way. Three new senators will take office immediately following the midterms — one each from Delaware, Illinois, and West Virginia, where special elections are being held to replace temporarily appointed senators. And the Republicans running in these races are eager to help.

Illinois Republican Senate candidate Mark Kirk has promised that if he wins, “I will become the 42nd Republican senator, with the opportunity to put the brakes on any lame-duck overreach.”

Delaware Republican candidate Christine O’Donnell has made it part of her pitch, too. “Who do you want serving in that lame-duck session?” she has said. “Someone who’s going to promote that very liberal agenda that can’t even get enough Democratic support, or someone who is going to push back against the establishment?”

West Virginia’s Republican Senate candidate, John Raese, who is up in the polls, has stated unequivocally that he would oppose the Democrats’ lame-duck agenda. He has said, “It is completely inappropriate for House and Senate Democrats, who would be in cahoots with President Obama, to take up any legislation that would significantly affect the country after an election that will considerably alter the political landscape of Congress. Any attempt to do so would be a slap in the face to all Americans who voted for a change from the liberal status quo.”

More candidates should go on the record with such statements. There’s a whole month of campaigning left before the midterms, and voters can extract promises from their elected officials not to let the Fired Congress pass major legislation. This is a reasonable request that even the Democrats should be able to support. Colorado Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck has called on Democratic senator Michael Bennet to promise to oppose any tax hikes Harry Reid may try to ram through during the lame-duck session. All Senate Democrats up for election this year should be asked to do the same.

Getting more elected officials to speak out against a spendthrift lame-duck session can help deter the Democratic leadership from cramming it with votes. It’s been reported that Democrats are considering as many as 20 pieces of legislation to bring up for a vote. After failing to get the New START Treaty (an agreement that hurts America’s missile-defense systems) ratified, to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and to pass legislation to give amnesty to illegal aliens, Democrats see opportunity after the elections, when a number of their members won’t have anything to lose.

Democrats are also hoping that the pressure of a Christmas deadline will get some Republicans to break their way. White House senior adviser David Axelrod recently said he thinks Republicans will “blink” and help Democrats raise taxes as the end-of-the year deadline approaches. Republicans must not cave.

Democrats are playing political games and Americans are going to fire them for it in November. When the Democrats come back in December to box up their personal belongings, Republicans must make sure that’s all they take with them.

Jim DeMint is a U.S. senator from South Carolina.

NRO

MCH: State audit probing county contracts

Madison County officials can soon expect the results of a state audit that looked at the county's contracts for services.

"We will have a final draft in a week for the Board of Supervisors and a final report a week after that," said Laney Grantham, a spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Audit.

The final report in two weeks will be made public, she said.

The audit was prompted by months of questions raised by city officials, citizens and others over the county's engineering contracts and what county residents are getting for their tax dollars. Last year, the boards of Madison and Ridgeland approved resolutions for an for an audit of fees paid to Rudy Warnock, the county engineer. Madison Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler has also questioned Warnock's business practices and contracted with an outside engineer to analyze Warnock's contracts and works with the county on road and bridge projects.

In a special meeting last Thursday to close out the 2009-2010 budget year, the supervisors did what [Supervisor Tim] Johnson called "housekeeping" to clear up some issues raised by the Audit Department. The board granted the authority to department heads to contact any vendors if they needed more information to finalize county business and not ask supervisors for the right on a case-by-case basis.

Supervisor Karl Banks agreed with the move, but added that board members also have the right to ask for additional information or verification on bills "because we are the ones ultimately responsible. Any claims that don't have proper documentation should be held until they can be verified."

The board also noted for its minutes, which serves as the county's official record, that board attorney Eric Hamer and Warnock have contract with the county until the end of the current term in 2011. Hamer said he was told by the former county administrator that their contracts did not have to be renewed each year.

Johnson said that contract issue also resolves questions raised by the Audit Department. "We hire a professional engineer and a professional attorney and authorize them to do contract work for Madison County," he said.

"As board members, if our attorney recommends a contract to protect the county's interests, we go along with him. The minute we lose that faith, we replace him," Johnson said.

The out-of-state engineer's analysis of Warnock's work, issued by Butler in February, offered the opinions that the county failed in having adequate controls over contracts and that Warnock's firms was paid excessive fees.

Warnock has denied all the allegations in the report. A majority of the Board of Supervisors has stood firm in support with Warnock and the county contracts with his firm.

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MBJ Video: Harper Predicts GOP House Victory, "Bigger Than 1994"

From the Stennis Institute Luncheon:

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