In an announcement made via blogpost on Tuesday, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. will be eliminating the benefits received by some of its part-time workers, as well as require its roughly 1.3 million employees to pay additional costs for premium healthcare insurance plans.

The entire workforce of Wal-Mart in the U.S. will have to shoulder the company's decision to raise the health insurance premiums starting in January. Moreover, employees working less than 30 hours a week in Wal-Mart will no longer be covered by the healthcare plan in accordance with the newly devised scheme. Hence, this move could potentially affect 2 percent of the workers in the U.S., or approximately 30,000 people.

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According to the announcement, the costs for the bi-weekly premiums will increase by $3.50 to $21.90. This indicates a 19 percent rise for Wal-Mart's most availed and lowest-cost employee-only plans. On the other hand, analysts pointed out that the workers affected by this increase earn an average of $12.92 per hour.

In response to the criticisms over the decision, Wal-Mart asserted that the company has been dealing with problematic expenses in the health care system in August as seen in the decrease of its 2014 profit forecast. In its explanation, the retail giant claimed that an increasing number of workers had been availing of the plans, thereby causing a 50 percent increase in the costs of health care.

"Like every company, Wal-Mart continues to face rising health care costs," wrote Sally Welborn, the senior vice president of global benefits, in the company's website on Tuesday.

"This year, the expenses were significant and led us to make some tough decisions as we begin our annual enrollment," she added.

Wal-Mart's move is presumably an effort to brace the company for the enactment of the Affordable Care Act in January. In accordance with this law, companies employing 50 or more workers will be required to offer health insurance plans to those reporting to work for at least 30 hours per week. Consequently, this mandate instilled additional pressure on companies already anxiously balancing expenses.

In addition, this move by the largest employer of the private sector in the United States generated fear among workers that other companies might follow its lead.

Edward Jones' analyst Brian Yarbrough explained that Wal-Mart's decision could affect the way other retailers determine which benefits to provide.

Yarbrough claimed that most retailers are "trying to cut expenses, to keep things lean." Hence, these businesses reach a point when they "start looking across the board, and this is probably the next place to start looking at cuts."

TagsWal-Mart, healthcare, us healthcare, Affordable Care Act