Many cities and counties are
cutting employee hours 16 months ahead of the effective date of the provision
in Obamacare that requires them to offer health-care coverage to all employees
who work at least 30 hours a week.
Some local officers are
making the cuts early either because of labor contracts that must be negotiated
in advance, or because employees who work at least 30 hours in the month
leading up the January 2015 implementation date (of the mandatory coverage)
would need to be included.
The Post reported the
following examples:
• Middletown Township, N.J.,
said it would reduce the hours of 25 part-time workers to avoid up to $775,000
in increased annual health-care costs.
• Bee County, Tex., said it
would limit its part-time workers to 24 hours per weeks, when it’s new fiscal
year starts Oct. 1.
• Brevard County, Fla.,
estimates the new mandate would cost the county $10,000 a year per part-time
employee; the county’s libraries have already cut hours for 37 employees.
• Lynchburg, Va., has cut
hours for 35 to 40 part-time workers.
• Chesterfield County, Va.
(south of Richmond) said it likely would cut the hours of “several hundred” employees.
• Chippewa County, Wisc.,
will drop 15 part-time workers to avoid up to $163,000 in annual health care
costs.
A senior fellow of economic
studies at the liberal Brookings Institution,* a Washington, D.C.-based think
tank, told the Post that he doesn’t think Obamacare will be a “big direct-cost
burden” to cities and counties.
* The Brookings Institution
describes itself as a “independent and nonpartisan,” but a 2011 study examining
the political donations of think tank employees, showed that 97 percent of
Brookings’ employees’ political donations went to Democrats.
