Posted on 11/11/2012 8:03:51 AM PST by Renfield
Businesses with 50 or more employees who average at least 30 hours of work a week will be subject to the Obamacare insurance coverage mandate.
Companies are reportedly planning large layoffs due to the implementation of Obamacare.
But, companies can potentially avoid being subject to Obamacare's insurance requirements by limiting employees’ weekly hours to less than the 30 hour level defined by Obamacare as “full-time.”
A little-known section in the ObamaCare health reform law defines “full-time” work as averaging only 30 hours per week, a definition that will affect some employers who utilize part-time workers to trim the cost of complying with the ObamaCare rule that says businesses with 50 or more full-time workers must provide health insurance or pay a fine.
“The term ‘full-time employee’ means, with respect to any month, an employee who is employed on average at least 30 hours of service per week,” section 1513 of the law reads. (Scroll down to section 4, paragraph A.)
That section, known as the employer mandate, requires any business with 50 or more full-time employees to provide at least the minimum level of government-defined health coverage to those employees. In other words, a business must provide insurance if it has 50 or more employees working an average of just 30 hours per week, which is 10 hours per week fewer than the traditional 40-hour work week.
Thus, by cutting employees’ hours to ensure they average less than the 30 per week, employers could potentially avoid the cost of providing the minimum insurance levels mandated by Obamacare.
many people will jump directly to the Zero Hour Workweek, thanks to Obamacare
The problem with this is as quickly as possible, we are exporting jobs.
America is currently let by two parties, who destroy America.
The Dems destroy America by wanting unions. Unions make things less competitive.
The GOP destroy America by sending jobs elsewhere. That simply destroys opportunity here.
NOBODY is doing this right. What we need is a serious national effort to bring back jobs (through legislation even), which does not send those workers into unions.
Without both of those, we continue to shrink and to fail.
But what we are doing now is FAILED.
We must bring back American jobs.
Kroger will soon join the ranks of Darden Restaurants (Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Red Lobster and others) and slash the hours of its non-exempt (hourly) workers to a maximum of 28 hours/week to avoid millions in Obamacare penalties.
Darden Restaurants employs 185,000, and Kroger’s employs nearly 350,000 people. Most of its jobs are hourly and the vast majority of workers are non-exempt.
Under these current conditions, I can foresee the best businesses that pay $6000 towards healthcare, offering their employees a $6000 bump in pay in lieu of a raise to cover the $2000 fine, and then the employee gets stuck with 15-30% annual healthcare inflation, and the employer is off the hook.
HR burns a ton of time on Healthcare too. HR expenses would be cut by a third. Proposed taxes on (401k and eliminating the mortgage interest deduction will just kill the working American, who will beg for “justice” from the government. The new normal sucks!!!!
Who can blame a company for going tech? With all the goodies and regulations like Onomacare, it's better to use machines. A machine will work non stop, never demand extra days off, never demand longer vacations, never demand more money, and never demand better health care.
Machines will work and be happy. People won't.
I understand completely why robotics have become so popular. A business today would be crazy not to let machines do the work that people won't do without complaining.
Unless employees start to show some gratitude for the jobs they're given, I see robotics being in high demand. They're better - They're easier. They're smarter. They're cheaper. They're easier to get along with.
About a month ago, the government released an 18 PAGE definition of "full-time worker."
I can't wait to get my health care at the DMV.
My understanding is that companies need to have a lot of this stuff in place by January 2013. We’ve heard media reports of some large companies moving in this direction.
Why do folks think unemployment fell 0.3% in September? Full-time folks were having their hours reduced to under 30 hours, and many hundreds of thousands of folks were hired on a part-time basis to pick up the slack.
So, the Kenyan anti-Christ gets the best of all worlds: he destroys hundreds of thousands of full-time jobs; makes folks increasingly dependent on the government; and gets “CREDIT” for decreasing unemployment!
Trade is WAY WAY WAY over-rated.
It can be constructive, and destructive.
Who knew?
Capitalism is the best system going, but if it is used improperly, it can be destructive too.
In a balanced economy, Capitalism is great. When you open up an economy like ours to an economy like China’s, one system loses and one wins.
I’ll let folks figure out if this is right or not.
Which nation prospered most over the last twenty years, the U. S. or China?
Any plan that puts people on my block out of work, so someone making 1/150th of what they do per hour can work, is not a good plan.
It’s actually worse than 30 hours per week. In a straight up job, that’s probably accurate. Under welfare to work programs, the individual can work as little as two perhaps three part time days per week, and still be considered employed.
Twelve hours max, is that what we normally think of as full employment?
I kid you not, our government overlords are cheating/lying to us every possible way they can.
You said a policy costs the company $6000. Good health care policies cost a around $1300 per month per employee. My husband’s company has a top tier policy and it costs us $300 per month and the company $1000 per month (and there’s just the two of us, I don’t know what a family plan costs.
My company’s policy which has much higher deductibles, cost my employer about $1000 per month. Employer pays $900 employee $100.
So since I realize the cost of their healthcare is so high, I believe the incentive in the whole penalty being cheaper by far than what they pay is to drive them to drop employees from healthcare and force them to choose a government offered plan.
My previous employer, General Dynamics, outsourced their production inventory. The new company looks into the MRP, Material Resource Planning system and brings in the inventory for that day. They stock it. They also (mostly) buy it, inspect it and guarantee it. The idea was to eliminate buyers, inspectors, inventory clerks and save floor space. It has worked spectacularly well.
My present employer (I’m a contractor) uses mostly no benefits contractors regardless of how important the position is. Much of the inventory is dispensed from vending machines owned by Fastenal. These include virtually all of the consumables; welding rods, helmets, special overall suits, etc. Again, the purpose was to eliminate full time jobs. Now, you might say, “well, those fulltime jobs have simply moved.” No, they’ve mostly been eliminated by technology. The Fastenal stuff is ordered and drop shipped automatically. There are only a few really young kids who come and fill the machines. I spoke with one and he said he didn’t qualify for any benefits.
My employer doesn’t own the vending machines, which are in every area. They don’t pay for the dispensed product until the employee uses his ID card and “buy’s” an item.
Let's say you're a hardworking sort that is OK with only getting 30 hours or less from an employer because you're OK working more than one job.
Problem is now that companies have software that predicts how many workers they need at a particular time. Employees are now getting yanked around from shift to shift to meet the demands of the software. If you're given a shift and can't work it, because you are supposed to be working at your other job, then you may not get any more shifts in the future.
At least if you are in retail, or some other customer-facing business, it may be difficult to manage more than one 20 hr/wk job.
Big government treats us like either ATMs or game show contestants, while big business treats us like mere human resources.
The liberals want to be just like France and it’s happening, yipee!
I wonder if they’ll ever realize what they’ve thrown away.
We’re so screwed.
Anyone remember which candidate got the most support from Insurance Companies in 2008? Here's a hint; it was the same candidate that received record setting contributions from British Petroleum.
Agree, I’m just saying that the best we can hope for is a one time bump in salary to ostensibly cover the healthcare benefit, which then shifts the entirety of providing healthcare to the employee., and the assumption of inflation by the employee. That’s the best case, ratcheting that down , will be some employers who say, sorry folks, we paid $10,000 last year, but next year they want $12,000, so we’re done offering insurance, and they will pocket the $8,000 in savings after paying the $2,000 fine.
I suspect, that many employers will will go that “sorry folks” route, since it might mean a couple of quarterly earning improvements and bonuses for the C level executives.
I tried to explain to folks that outsourcing wasn’t a good thing for the United States. I was literally laughed at.
Well, here we are. Isn’t it grand.
Ok, so how would you have stopped outsourcing in a manner that the cure wouldn’t be even worse than the disease?
Of course the employers will go with the $2K fine.
That’s whole objective. The socialists want everyone on the government plan. (Except the lawmakers who have foisted it on us. They exempted themselves.)
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