l****z
发帖数: 29846 | 1 by Patrick Ryan
Add Virginia to the list of states that are cutting work hours to avoid
offering health insurance to part-time employees.
Per The Washington Examiner:
About 10,000 Virginia public employees are poised to see their hours cut
back as Gov. Bob McDonnell continues to find ways around what he said were
President Obama’s costly health care reforms.
Both the Virginia House and Senate passed budget amendments that will
cap part-time state workers at 29 hours a week to avoid complying with a
provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that requires
businesses and governments to offer health insurance to any wage employee
who averages 30 hours a week.
The cutbacks affect the Virginia Community College System and Virginia
Commonwealth University the most adversely, as the former hires 1,479 part-
time workers and VCU employs 883 of the same.
The plan is supposed to save the state $110 million a year.
While restaurants such as Papa John’s and Red Lobster have already
threatened to do this, some franchise owners have added surcharges to pay
for the mandated benefits.
Liberals argue that these employers are “punishing” their workers and
customers for President Obama’s election. I don’t accept this argument.
Simply, when prices increase because of taxes or regulations such as the ACA
, businesses must respond by either increasing prices or releasing workers
to reduce costs. The point of a business is to earn profit by providing a
service or product; providing health insurance for part-time workers adds
significant expenses, those that these businesses avoided because they
couldn’t viably afford them in the first place.
Virginia Secretary of Administration Lisa Hicks-Thomas articulates it
effectively: “We’re all grappling with the same problem. A lot of people
are trying to spin this as Republicans trying to fight Obamacare, but this
is just us complying with the act. We don’t have $110 million to afford the
implementations of this act.” |
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