In explaining its move — which was first reported by Kaiser Health News and USA Today — U.P.S. told employees, “Since the Affordable Care Act requires employers to provide affordable coverage, we believe your spouse should be covered by their own employer — just as U.P.S. has a responsibility to offer coverage to you, our employee.”

“In an effort to maintain premiums at or below current cost,” Andrew McGowan, a U.P.S. spokesman, said, “U.P.S. made a change that affects a limited number of employees.”

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.

Large employers like Xerox and Teva Pharmaceuticals already impose surcharges for spousal coverage. And some cities, like Terre Haute, Ind., decided to follow what many of its private corporations were doing, by adopting a “spousal carve-out” so that working spouses would not be covered under its health plans.

The limits on coverage are occurring as some cities and companies are also considering changes to coverage for retirees under 65 and not eligible for Medicare, who might be shifted to the health insurance exchanges being established in states under the Obama health care law.

While the percentage of employers adopting changes in policies like U.P.S.’s new limits remains in the single digits, it is growing. According to a corporate survey by Mercer, a consulting firm, 6 percent of companies with 500 or more employees excluded coverage for spouses in 2012 if their spouses could obtain coverage through their own employer. That is double the percentage in 2008, Mercer found.

Mercer’s survey also found that 6 percent of employers required a surcharge for workers who keep their spouses on their health coverage even though their spouses could obtain coverage from their own employer. A Towers Watson survey found that 33 percent of large employers said they would impose such a surcharge by 2015.

The new U.P.S. policy does not apply to the children of those employees. Nor does it affect the company’s 250,000 unionized workers, who belong to the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. At the end of last year, the company had around 399,000 employees.

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.

Assessing U.P.S.’s new policy, Gary Claxton, a vice president and health care expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said, “It’s clear that it’s a competitive industry, and they want to cut costs.”

Barry Schilmeister, a senior health consultant at Mercer, said one reason more employers were embracing this policy was to help avoid being hit by the so-called Cadillac tax, which imposes a 40 percent tax on health care premiums above a certain threshold. In 2018, when that tax takes effect, the threshold will be $10,200 for individual coverage and $27,500 for family coverage.

“The Cadillac tax is going to be a serious extra cost for plans that exceed a certain level,” Mr. Schilmeister said. He added that with this move, “U.P.S. is in an indirect way addressing its overall costs — it’s going to lower its total exposure by potentially covering fewer people.”

Mr. Schilmeister predicted that many companies would shun the policy because it posed numerous problems. “It’s not going to be a popular move among employees,” he said.

He added that it would put many employers and employees in an uncomfortable position, with companies that adopt this policy often requiring employees to sign an affidavit affirming that their spouse was not being offered health coverage by another employer.

Many corporations have complained that their health costs would rise as a result of various provisions of the Affordable Care Act, like the requirement that insurance plans cover workers’ children up to age 26 and the prohibition against a lifetime cap on the amount insurance plans would pay for an employee’s health care. Both those provisions took effect in 2010.

Joanne Peters, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, pointed to numerous studies that predicted that employers would continue to offer coverage notwithstanding the law’s requirements.

Moreover, premiums have been rising modestly, she said. In a survey of employers released on Tuesday, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that the average annual premium for a family rose 4 percent in 2013, to $16,351.

Mr. Claxton, the vice president with the Kaiser Family Foundation, said he doubted provisions like the requirement to insure employers children up to age 26 were creating strains on U.P.S. and other companies.

“Those things are trivial in terms of expenses — just pennies per month,” Mr. Claxton said.

By: Steven Greenhouse NYTimes

FAA: UPS jet crashes in Birmingham, Ala.

Mr. Battaglia, 51, was demoted from his position as a manager to a supervisor and assigned to the night shift after lodging his complaints in October 2005, according to the law suit he brought against UPSide Down Brown. Mr. Battaglia still works for the company.

Following a month-long trial before Superior Court Judge Phillip Paley, the jury awarded Mr. Battaglia $500,000 for his economic losses and $500,000 for emotional distress on Friday.

The jury found UPSide Down Brown violated both New Jersey anti-discrimination laws and laws prohibiting retaliation against whistle-blowers.

The 8 person jury returned to the courtroom and decided Mr. Battaglia was not entitled to any punitive damages.

Mr. Battaglia’s attorney, Ms. Binetti, indicated that Mr. Battaglia was told by his bosses if he reported the alleged fraud “we’re coming after you.”

“You have to send a message to UPSide Down Brown that that will not be tolerated,” Ms. Binetti told the judge. “Mr. Battaglia gave 20 years of his life to UPSide Down Brown and is still doing that job. Nothing has changed, and he’ll never be promoted.”

Mr. Battaglia protested that managers were doing things that he thought violated UPSide Down Brown policies, including misuse of corporate credit cards and making derogatory comments about women, according to Ms. Binetti.

He also filed a complaint about the fraudulent credit card use on a special complaint hotline UPSide Down Brown had established.

Ms. Binnetti said in retaliation, the managers “set him up and subjected him to a sham investigation” claiming he had leaked information from a manager’s meeting that wasn’t supposed to be revealed. He was demoted to supervisor, put on the night shift and put in charge of training new employees.

“The people at the highest level of this district were involved in this retaliation,” Ms. Binetti told the jury today. “Not one witness who did this (took the actions against Mr. Battaglia) expressed remorse, only utter contempt for Mr. Battaglia as if he was the scum of the earth and made all of this up.”

The attorney who represented UDB, said that UPSide Down Brown “has accepted responsibility in this case.”

“Several people made decisions and you found that those decisions were wrong and illegal,” Bissinger told the jury today. “They are just managers and supervisors. UPSide Down Brown is not the evil empire. This is a company that does good things, but management made mistakes.”

Ms. Binetti said she expects UPSide Down Brown will appeal the jury’s $1 million award.

Ms. Binetti said the lawsuit was filed in Middlesex County because UPSide Down Brown has an operations center in the county.
Posted on July 18, 2013 by Special Guest @ UPSide Down Brown