State's 4 like 40-hour jobs for coverage

WASHINGTON -- Arkansas' all-Republican U.S. House delegation supported legislation Thursday that would increase how many hours an employee must work before his employer is responsible for providing him health insurance.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's expansion of insurance coverage requires employers with 50 or more workers to provide health benefits for employees who work 30 or more hours per week. Employers can be fined for not offering health insurance to qualifying employees.

Supporters of the increased-hours legislation say the current 30-hours threshold has prompted employers to restrict workers to fewer than 30 hours so they don't qualify for insurance coverage.

If the Save American Workers Act of 2015 becomes law, employers would have to provide health insurance for only those working 40 hours a week or more.

The four congressmen from Arkansas are among the measure's 150 co-sponsors. The House approved the measure 252-172. The bill is expected to be considered in the Senate by the end of the month.

U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford of Jonesboro said the current mandate encourages employers to cut employees' hours.

"What we're trying to do is not have a part-time workforce in this country," Crawford said. "What we're trying to do is preserve the integrity of the workforce and allow people to work at a full-time job."

U.S. Rep. Steve Womack of Rogers said in a statement that the people facing reduced hours because of the mandate are seeing smaller paychecks.

"Those [that] Obamacare was designed to help most would actually be hurt the most if this provision was left as is, and I am encouraged that the House has acted to make this provision right," he said.

U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman of Hot Springs said the change would be a boon for employers and employees.

"This is something we need to spur jobs, to give employers the confidence that they can hire people and not be penalized for it," Westerman said. "It'll help people to earn more money and make their way."

U.S. Rep. French Hill of Little Rock said people asked him during the campaign how Congress would make it easier to find full-time work.

"This is clearly one of those things that contributes, in my judgment, to potentially a barrier to full-time employment," he said.

Arkansas has about 3,000 companies with more than 50 employees, according to the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement. Of the estimated 700,000 people who work for those companies, about 115,000 work fewer than 40 hours a week and could be affected by the change.

It's not clear how many of those 115,000 work more than 30 hours a week, Arkansas Center for Health Improvement Director Joe Thompson said.

Thompson said that regardless of whether the hours requirement changes, the Affordable Care Act requires that Americans either have health insurance or pay penalties.

"The Affordable Care Act made it a responsibility for everyone to have health insurance," Thompson said.

The law requires that if a person works at a company with more than 50 employees and works more than 30 hours a week, it is the employers' responsibility to provide insurance. An employee at a smaller company or a self-employed person is responsible for finding his own insurance in most circumstances. For the nation's poorest people, the government is required to help them obtain health coverage through Medicaid or by providing subsidies.

The proposed legislation "shifts the responsibility for those that are between 30 and 40 hours a week from the employer back on to the individual," he said.

Thompson said people often think about how many hours a person works, but don't think about the wages the person earns. A part-time employee in a white-collar job might get paid enough to buy his own insurance, but someone earning minimum wage would struggle to do so.

"You've got folks working low-wage jobs part time that, depending on their family income, might not qualify for the private option," he said. "You've got to think about the family's income and ability to actually participate."

BancorpSouth Insurance consultant Mark Meadors said the effect of the change would be huge for Arkansas businesses.

"If they raise it to 40 hours, it would be a godsend to a lot of employers and their employees because then they would have options," he said.

He said that before the Affordable Care Act, many Arkansas businesses offered insurance to employees who worked more than 35 hours a week.

"That was a good number. Typically those employees were able to ... afford that coverage," he said. But with the new group of people to pay for, companies have had to find ways to absorb the cost, including offering bare-bones, high-deductible coverage (commonly called catastrophic coverage), not hiring new employees or cutting back on employee hours to not qualify.

"Employers are having to get creative, and in some cases it's at the expense of the employee," Meadors said. "And it's not that they want to do that, for a lot of them it comes down to the dollars and cents."

A section on 01/09/2015