What’s Wrong with an Apple Employee Being on Medicaid? A Lot.

by John Baackes, CEO, L.A. Care Health Plan

I recently had to go the Downtown L.A. Apple store to get a tune-up on my personal MacBook Air Notebook. I had come from the office so I was in my “uniform” - a business suit, dress shirt, and tie. I also had my L.A. Care pin on my lapel and was wearing an L.A. Care facemask. The Apple store associate who was waiting on me, noticed my pin and face mask and asked if I was with L.A. Care. I replied that, indeed, I was. She said she had L.A. Care as her health plan. I asked, “Are you happy with L.A. Care?” She replied, “Oh yes!” Then I felt it was safe to tell her I was the CEO.

I asked the Apple associate if she was enrolled in L.A. Care through Covered California, which is the state’s Affordable Care Act exchange. I assumed she was one of the individuals who uses Covered California if they are part-time workers. She said, “No, I am on Medi-Cal (Medicaid in California).” I thanked her for her help and wished her the best.

What is wrong with the sales associate being on Medicaid?

She works for the wealthiest corporation in America. Apple is worth more than $2.8 trillion. $2,809,000,000,000 is a staggering number. It is the largest publically traded company in the country. And yet, it lets some of its employees use publically funded health care rather than give them enough hours to qualify for company paid benefits, or it pays them so little their income is below 138% of the federal poverty level for an individual.

I did not quiz the sales associate on her status or hours, but there has been a long-running trend by mega employers of hiring part-time workers to avoid paying for benefits. Health care and retirement are two expensive benefits that are avoided with this trend. The retraction of employer-sponsored health care and retirement benefits is contributing significantly to the erosion of the middle class in the United States and the widening income inequality gap.

Apple is not alone in letting its employees use publically funded health care. WalMart, until recently, paid its fulltime employees so little that many qualified for Medicaid. Yet the Walton family has become immensely wealthy.

Why should L.A. Care be concerned about the sales associate being on Medicaid? After all, the mega companies are giving us more members.

We question it because L.A. Care is committed to advancing health equity. That’s why we recently raised our minimum wage to $20 per hour, although there were only a handful making under that at the time of the change. A person, like the particular sales associate at the Apple store, who is making so little money that she is eligible for Medicaid, is likely facing other barriers to health for herself and her family – things like food insecurity, transportation and affordable child care. This is deeply concerning when she and others like her are working for such a wealthy company.

Today, nearly 35 percent of Americans are in taxpayer-funded health care programs – well over a 100 million people, or about one in every three people in the country. Shouldn’t the Apples and Walmarts of the world offer their workers fulltime opportunities with benefits? Shouldn’t they offer those workers who need to work part-time some help toward health care that is not publically funded? The answer is yes! They’ve got the resources to do the right thing.