Many part-timers to lose pay amid health act's new math

la times/pioneer press ^ | 5-12-13 | chad tehune

[TurboZamboni]

Many part-timers are facing a double whammy from President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act.

The law requires large employers offering health insurance to include part-time employees working 30 hours a week or more. But rather than provide health care to more workers, a growing number of employers are cutting back employee hours instead.

The result: Not only will these workers earn less money, but they'll also miss out on health insurance at work.

Consider the city of Long Beach, Calif. It is limiting most of its 1,600 part-time employees to fewer than 27 hours a week, on average. City officials say that without cutting payroll hours, new health benefits would cost up to $2 million more next year, and that extra expense would trigger layoffs and cutbacks in city services.

Part-timer Tara Sievers, 43, understands why, but she still thinks it's wrong.

[lowbridge]

bump

[Mr. K]

I don’t think they are going to sit back and allow their plans to be thwarted by a republican win in 2014

I think they are working all out to rig the election just like they rigged it in 2012

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Wish MY employer would cut my hours to a mere 27 a week; these 50+ hour work weeks are killin’ me, Man! *SMIRK*

(Never worked harder for less in my life. Thanks, 0bama! *SPIT*)

[Zeneta]

30 or more “places” or “hours per week”

Train wreck is an understatement.

[yorkiemom]

I wonder who Tara voted for.

It's hard for me to feel sympathy for someone that, out of greed, voted for what they thought would be a free-handout for themselves.

[SECURE AMERICA]

“I understand there are costs to health care reform, but it is surely not the intent of the law for employees to lose hours,” said the outreach coordinator at the El Dorado Nature Center in Long Beach.

Then you did not understand the intent of the law. The law was intended to force business and people to do something they would otherwise not do.

[yorkiemom]

The IRS and the state of California both have regulations and laws forbidding such practices. They are going to get you coming and going I’m afraid.

The IRS is stopping businesses from making their employees part-time as well?

[Cringing Negativism Network]

If you are bringing jobs back to America, I can see this criticism as having merit.

However I don’t see jobs coming to America. I see jobs being shipped offshore now for two decades. Non-stop.

Both parties shipping American jobs offshore.

Imports ruling now: most stores sell predominantly imports.

Which do not support ANY AMERICANS.

Right now, we need to stop making healthcare a high-cost individual luxury.

We have rampant unemployment in America.

Both parties are responsible. Until we bring back jobs, we need to stop trying for returning healthcare to the expensive mess it recently was.

First things first. Bring back US jobs.

[yorkiemom]

I have this thought that the President had anticipated the Supreme Court would have wiped out ObamaCare last year...as part of the grand plan, and then use the episode to declare full-scale war with the election against the Republicans.

Here's an interesting take - that Roberts stymied.

[Chode]

i'll give you three guesses, and the first two don't count...

[dennisw]

The senior and important staffers write these monstrous bills. No US Senator is going to waste his time doing anything intellectually demanding plus half are on meds that make them somewhat out of it. The Senator is out talking to lobbyists, ethnic pressure groups and schmoozing donors

The staffers get outside input in this Obama era from progressive foundations

[Zeneta]

You can’t even split it up between family members.

_________________________________________________________

That’s BS !!!

I do believe what you are saying.

The rule/law is BS.

This will not only create huge problems for existing entities, it will have closed the loopholes that, I think some DemoRats, were counting on.

The result will make “everybody” a “Worker”.

It will destroy the independent contractor and the flexibility that status provides.

Unless “every” position in the operation of the company is an “IC” and paid on a 1099.

Not sure if that would work either.

[M-cubed]

They did not consider any of the Consequences of this act.<<

BS!......Ray Charles could see the plan for the new 2 tiered healthcare plan.....

Real Doctors will go private for pay from those that can afford it and the new "Free" Government Doctors will work for the government...after being selected from Acme Meat Cutter School and trained in the 8 week “Prodigious Government Doctor School”

[9422WMR]

“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.”
Pericles

Good quote, I’ll bang the liberals at work over the head with that one!

[Chief901]

The low information voters supported Obozo because of all the free-things, and now they are losing pay.

Face it, they got screwed by Obozo................

[DownInFlames]

Just wait until the illegals get amnesty. They will relish part time work.

[xrmusn]

operation of the company is an “IC” and paid on a 1099.

Not sure if that would work either.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
I can’t see that happening.
As it stands now, ‘they’ try their best to discourage the “IC” as ‘they’ have NO ONE to collect and give ‘them’ the witholdings as it is a quarterly filing with ‘YOU’ sending ‘them’ a check.

If companies and businesses ‘quit’ being the tax collector FOR the ‘Govt’ the system would ‘surely’ break down which of course is one reason why ‘they’ are reluctant to knock off the ‘illegal’ work force as enough of the ‘illegals’ pay some sort of tax through withholdings.

Remember your first check when you were told you were going to be making $2.50 per hr and you were counting on 100 bucks because you put in 40 hrs.

OH THE SHOCK when the check was handed to you for the grand amount of $85 bucks and you wondered what the “SOB’s” and this guy named FICA were ‘sharing’ your money was all about.

(ABOVE figures used for ease, NOT accuracy, to prove a point).

My ‘1st’ job was as a pinsetter in a bowling alley, (COMPLETELY manual - except for the treadle peddle and pegs sticking up) and, as a 14 yo got the grand sum of $6 per day, working double alley/double shift. In 1954 30 bucks a week for a high school kid wasn’t all that shabby, especially when you could work ‘free lance’ on weekends with tips included.
Then went in the Navy where I earned the grand total of $75 per month BUT they ‘threw in’ room and board in exchange for being on call 24/7.

Between the Nuns up through 9th Grade and working 30+ hours a week while in HS, my parents (Mother) would surely be in the slammer in todays world for “Gross Child Abuse and Neglect”. <: <: <:

[peggybac]

I’m sure the professors and other high paid employees elsewhere can afford their own insurance so their status would not have to be reduced to part time. My place of employment’s insurance isn’t that great so I’ve kept my BCBS for piece of mind. I don’t make squat at my job but I will always pay for good insurance.

[Zeneta]

Thanks for your reply.

I can’t seem to get my head around the existing laws and the implications of “ZeroCare”.

Under “ZeroCare” what prohibits me from taking a job at “any company” as an independent contractor ?

I could and should be able to “contract” with Wal-Mart as a greeter, cashier, self-stocker etc...

I should be able to “contract” my services to McDonalds as a Fry cook, burger flipper, etc ....

Individuals willing to forgo the benefits of being an “employee” for ability to earn money, will certainly be an attractive alternative for employers.

[MarkL]

The thing does not spell out anything but leaves the health of American citizens at the Whim of Sebelius the Secretary of Health and Human svc’s ./ She is practically a dictator over anything having to do with health care, and she simply is not equipped to handle the job.

Which is why the 2000 page bill is spawning what's approaching 20,000 pages of regulations, being written as we speak.

The pols claim "unintended consequences," but the reason for the "Affordable Care Act" was never aupposed to do any of the things the proponents claimed. It was designed strictly to force companies away from private insurers and begin a march towards government controlled health care, based on Britain's NHS.

Mark