The Affordable Care Act requires businesses that employ 50 or more full-time employees to provide them with healthcare. The law considers anyone who works an average of at least 30 hours a week to be full time. The provision was included to keep employers from circumventing the requirement by giving some employees less than the standard 40-hour work week.
The Senate bill's co-sponsors, Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.; Susan Collins, R-Maine; Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; Joe Donnelly, D-Ind.; and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said the provision had resulted in an even more perverse incentive: to reduce employee hours to just 29 a week.
...The bill will put some Democrats in a difficult position, forcing them to choose between local and state businesses that say the Obamacare mandate is squeezing them and the White House, which does not want to see a part of President Obama's signature initiative undone.
The White House said Tuesday it would veto any such legislation. Spokesman Josh Earnest said, in reaction to the House version, that it would make it easier for businesses to avoid the 50-employee requirement. "This proposed change would actually do a lot of harm, not just to the Affordable Care Act but to a substantial number of workers across the country," Earnest said.
Bi-paritsanship? Obama wants to veto that http://t.co/Sk7X6K8hss
— Red Alert Politics (@RedAlert) January 8, 2015
