Sen. Collins: Obamacare's 30-Hour Rule Will Damage Businesses
Saturday, 03 Aug 2013 09:49 AM
Collins, in Saturday's GOP address, noted that under Obamacare, anyone working an average of 30 hours a week is considered full-time, meaning many employers may cut their hours so they won't have to provide them with insurance.
A 40-hour work week is full-time, we all know that," said Collins.
She noted in her address that her family founded a small business in Maine more than 160 years ago that continues to be run by two of her brothers.
"Our economy is built on millions of enterprises just like ours," she said. "It’s not easy to survive in today’s economy. But these employers remain our nation’s job creators. We should be doing all we can to promote policies to help them survive and thrive."
She also agreed that healthcare reform should provide people with access to quality and affordable care "while encouraging economic growth. That’s not what is happening under Obamacare."
Instead, Collins said, Obamacare discourages small businesses from creating jobs and hiring new workers, and "has perverse incentives for employers to reduce the number of hours that their employees can work."
Most small businesses want to provide health insurance, said Collins, but can't afford to do so under Obamacare.
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"These enormous penalties are a real threat to employers who want to add jobs," she said. "They are a powerful incentive for employers to refrain from hiring additional workers."
But even worse, Collins said, is the Obamacare provision that calls people who work 30 hour weeks full-time.
"This will only cause some businesses to reluctantly reduce the hours of their workers to fewer than 30 hours per week," she noted.
The public sector is also being affected, Collins said, telling of one school system in her state that is preparing to cap substitute teachers' work at no more than 29 hours a week.
She also quoted Teamsters President James Hoffa, who said recently that Obamacare will "destroy the foundation of the 40-hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class."
"They are right to be worried," said Collins. "In the past, most new jobs were full-time. But, this year, the overwhelming majority of new jobs are part-time."
She also quoted a study from the Labor Center at the University of California, Berkeley, which said 10 million workers could have their hours cut because of Obamacare.
Collins admitted her "common sense" bill "won't solve the countless problems caused by Obamacare. But it would help ensure that millions of American workers do not have their hours, and their paychecks, reduced."© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
As Cohen said in the HR hearing, 96% of companies with 50+ employees already have health insurance, so they are unaffected by Obamacare.
ReplyDeleteThat leaves only 4%, and we are only talking about a subset of that 4% who are small enough to reduce to 49.
It's hard to see how this could become such a big deal, since less than 4% will be paying the penalty.
--David
CBO disagrees with your headline. Quote from CBO letter to Paul Ryan, May 15, 2013…
ReplyDelete"CBO and JCT most recently estimated the budgetary impact of repealing the ACA in July 2012. In a letter to Speaker Boehner (sent on July 24, 2012), CBO described the direct spending and revenue effects of H.R. 6079, the Repeal of Obamacare Act, as passed by the House of Representatives earlier in July. In that letter, CBO indicated that the net savings from eliminating the insurance coverage provisions of the ACA would be more than offset by the
combination of other spending increases and revenue reductions that repeal of the ACA would entail. On balance, CBO and JCT estimated, repealing the ACA would affect direct spending and revenues in ways resulting in a net increase in budget deficits of $109 billion over the 2013–2022 period. Although CBO and JCT have not updated that estimate to reflect the most recent baseline projections, we anticipate a similar result were we to do so."
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Not only does Obamacare reduce the deficit compared to baseline, we also get an increased in number of citizens insured from 82% today to 92% by 2023, according to another recent CBO forecast.
--David