Posted on 04/04/2014 2:05:46 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
WASHINGTON -- The House of Representatives voted along party lines today to pass a bill that would modify the Affordable Care Act to define full-time employees as those who work at least 40 hours per week, rather than the 30-hour threshold under the existing law.
The House passed the Save American Workers Act, 248 to 179, with only 18 Democrats joining a unanimous block of 230 Republicans in support of the legislation.
Central New York Reps. Dan Maffei, D-Syracuse, and Richard Hanna, R-Barneveld, stuck with their party's leadership on today's vote. Both have occasionally split with their party on other bills involving the Affordable Care Act.
House Republicans said Obamacare's existing rules gave employers an incentive to slash workers' hours to less than 30 per week in order to avoid falling under the Affordable Care Act's "employer mandate."
The health law requires employers with 50 or more full-time workers to provide health insurance to their workers or pay fines. The law's definition of full-time workers has been criticized especially by fast-food restaurants and other retailers whose employees generally don't work a 40-hour week.
"This detrimental definition discourages businesses from expanding and actually encourages employers to keep workers at 29 hours or less," Hanna said in a statement explaining his vote for the bill. "It also causes workers to lose jobs, wages and the health insurance they may have previously enjoyed. It is another example of Obamacare hurting the people it purports to help."
Hanna cited a report by the Hudson Institute that claimed 2.6 million American workers are at risk of having their hours reduced and wages cut due to the Affordable Care Act's definition of full time employees.
(Excerpt) Read more at syracuse.com ...
Full time for *this obamacare* purpose.
I’m disappointed that the RINO-controlled House of Representatives read the Constitution, including Congress’s Section 8-limited powers, at the beginnings of the 2011 and 2013 legislative sessions, neither healthcare or national minimum wage in Congress’s delegated powers.
It must be an election year.
I’m sure the obstructionist Reid Senate will hasten to pass this too. More and more government is proving it is the problem, not the solution.
I should have also included defining full time workers in addition to regulating minimum wage in post 22. Until the states amend the Constitution otherwise, and with the exception of the federal entities indicated in the Constituton’s Clauses 16 & 17 of Section 8 of Article I as examples, defining such things is entirely up to the individual states imo.
R P E A L
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