U.P.S. Will Cease Health Care Coverage for Certain Employees Spouses

1851 Project: News Of the Moment U.P.S. Will Cease Health Care Coverage for Certain Employees Spouses The New York Times reported today that the United Parcel Service will stop providing health benefits to some of their worker's spouses: United Parcel Service has told its white-collar employees that it will stop providing health care coverage to their spouses who can obtain coverage through their own employers, joining an increasing number of companies that are restricting or eliminating spousal health benefits. U.P.S., the world’s largest package delivery company, said its decision was prompted in part by “costs associated with” the federal health care law that is commonly called Obamacare. Several health care experts, however, said they believed the company was motivated by a desire to hold down health care costs, rather than because of cost increases under the law. U.P.S. is one of the biggest companies so far to drop spousal coverage for some segment of its work force, and its announcement was viewed by some as a harbinger of a broader trend in employers’ restrictions on health care benefits. Several health care experts said companies were taking these moves partly because the federal health care law does not require employers to provide spousal coverage, but does require them to offer it to employees and their children. U.P.S. made clear that it would continue to provide coverage to spouses who did not have it through another employer. Read more by clicking: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/business/ups-to-end-health-benefits-for-spouses-of-some-workers.html?ref=business&_r=0