US to subsidize city, Comcast, Carpenters' retiree care
100+ PA employers get government bailouts to pay their retirees' medical bills
The Affordable Care Act (Obama-care to its critics) made $5 billion available to help employers pay health insurance for retirees aged 55 to 65. "Businesses and other employers and unions that are accepted into the program will receive reimbursements for medical claims for early retirees" and their survivors until they're old enough for Medicare, the US Dept of Health and Human Services says.
The government today named the first 2,000 U.S. employers (103 in PA) getting the subsidy (there will be more), which Secretary Kathy Sebelius says "lowers health costs for all" by helping prevent expensive emergency calls from uninsured people in their late 50s and early 60s. Employers can choose to use this money for "premium relief" for retirees - or "to offset increases in their own health care costs." DHS says the subsidy will run til 2014 "when State health insurance Exchanges are up and running." They hope.
Local beneficiaries include big corporations: Air Products and Chemicals; Amerisource; Arkema; AstraZeneca; Berwind Corp.; Bimbo Bakeries; Comcast; Crown Cork & Seal; Dentsply; DuPont Co.; FMC Corp.; Hershey Co.; Hershey Entertainment & Resorts; Keystone Foods LLC; PNC; South Jersey Gas; Sunoco; Teleflex; United Refining; Univest (Union Trust).
Governments: Bensalem Township, Downingtown and Penncrest school districts; the Delaware and Pennsylvania state governments (but not New Jersey, except its Treasury and Sports Authority); Haverford Township; Montgomery County Community College; New Castle County (Del.); Pennsylvania Courts; Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission; and the City of Philadelphia
Unions, including locals and plans run by the Asbestos Workers; Bakery Workers; Building Trades; Carpenters; Graphic Communications Workers; Firefighters; Ironworkers; Operating Engineers; Painters; Pennsylvania State Education Association; Plumbers; Sheet Metal Workers; Steelworkers; Transport Workers; UFCW.
And nonprofits, including Christiana Hospital; Longwood Gardens; and Penn State, Princeton, Temple and Villanova Universities. (Also University of PA notes my reader & colleague Mike Armstrong.)