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Bill seeks to limit PPACA impact by raising 30-hour full-time limit
Heather Stauffer//June 20, 2013
The Forty Hours is Full Time Act of 2013 is sponsored by Sens. Joe Donnelly, D-Indiana, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, and would raise the threshold at which large employers are required to offer health care coverage to workers or pay a penalty to 40 hours a week or its equivalent. The senators also urged flexibility on implementing the employer mandate penalty beyond Jan. 1, 2014.
“The new health care law creates a perverse incentive for businesses to cut their employees’ hours so they are no longer considered ‘full time,’” Collins said in a news release. “If its definition of a full-time worker as someone who works only 30 hours a week is allowed to go into effect, millions of American workers could find their hours, and their earnings, reduced. This simply doesn’t make sense.”
“We need to change the definition of a ‘full-time employee’ in the Affordable Care Act to bring it in line with what most Americans have traditionally recognized as full time. We also need to provide clarity to employers so they have the information they need to run their businesses and plan for the future,” Donnelly said. “These are straightforward, common sense improvements that would benefit both employers and employees.”
Collins and Donnelly also wrote a public letter to President Obama urging his support of their proposal.
The International Franchise Association has released a statement praising the proposal, saying “the definition of a full-time employee under the ACA is unworkable for employers in the franchising industry, which includes many restaurants, retailers, hotel owners and service-related business owners, and supports more than one out of every eight private sector jobs in America.”
