Posted on 01/09/2015 6:59:38 PM PST by Jim Robinson
The House on Thursday in a 252-172 vote approved legislation that would waive fees on businesses that do not offer health insurance to employees working fewer than 40 hours per week.
The legislation – which has been at the center of a heavy corporate lobbying campaign – only received 12 Democratic votes. Eighteen Democrats backed the bill during a House vote on the same issue last spring.
No Republicans opposed the measure.
The White House has threatened to veto the bill, which strikes at the healthcare law’s mandate that businesses provide insurance.
The legislation is the GOP’s first chance to deliver an anti-ObamaCare bill to the president’s desk. It will now advance to the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has promised it will see a vote.
Republicans said the current statute gives employers an incentive to cut workers' hours to avoid paying fines as a result of the healthcare law. The healthcare law imposes fees on businesses that do not provide health insurance to employees who work 30 hours per week.
“The law punishes employers who provide workers with full-time jobs,” said House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline (R-Minn.).
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
That may be a strategy, but I believe it is not THE strategy. A comment on another forum got me thinking a bit further:
Perhaps the GOP strategy is to “fight” just hard enough to claim they fought, but they still lose. This leaves Obama’s disliked policies in place, and if people are riled up now, just wait until the parts of ObamaCare (etc.) that kick in this year, and in 2016, begin to take effect. Put another way, the GOP (for the most part) does not care about harm to citizens or the country. What they want is as many voters as angry as possible with the Dems, when the 2016 election rolls around. It’s all about political power.
Of course, some here believe the ugly results from ObamaCare will result in a push to a fully gov’t run system, but, I don’t think that will be successful. Too many voters will distrust the Dems, and too many of the Dem pols who can survive 2016 are now in bed with the big players making money (and making donations) from the present incestuous setup.
On the other hand, even if the Pub strategy works out and they sweep the House, Senate, and White House in 2016, will they then actually fix anything? Perhaps if a strong conservative wins the Presidency, that might happen, but it seems more likely that a few bandaids will be applied, and the crony capitalism will continue.
More or less thinking out loud here, but this bill strikes me as corporatist. It is highly likely that raising the number to 40 hours will induce employers to move many full time workers from the 40-45 hour range to the 35-39 range. This would absolve the employers’ need to cover a large number of employees’ health insurance costs. These employees are therefore kept “employed”, yet forced onto health care exchanges (bad...for them). Exchanges are the real problem, as much of the exchange concept is based on Medicaid expansion — something that ultimately will be our undoing in its further bloating of government largesse.
This “fix” is really not a fix. It is crony corporatist in that it benefits employers at the expense of the taxpayer (Medicaid expansion). In truth, there are very few helpful “fixes” for this abomination of a law. It is a flawed law at its core.
The media won’t report it. FOX might.
No kidding. What's left is just an empty show I don't care to watch.
Repeal the entire thing,...
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You can’t eat an elephant in one bite. Obamacare has to be devoured a bit at a time.
I understand that...I was responding to a post that seemed to state repeal of the 30 hour mandate was a fools errand because it will be filibustered in the Senate. But won’t a full repeal of the law?
The Supremes will drive a stake in its heart in June.
Like they did the first time?
Totally different case. This one's much easier.
Absolutely true. The federal government has no business whatsoever meddling in heathcare or working hours. The constitution clearly leaves these matters to the states and the people. The GOP’s meddling won’t help. The entire mess needs to be repealed by congress or tossed out by the SCOTUS.
They should send that prick so many bills that he gets carpal tunnel.
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