WASHINGTON - According to a new non-partisan Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation cost estimate, A Republican bill to change the definition of the work week under the Affordable Care Act from 30 hours a week to 40 hours a week would increase the deficit by $74 billion over 10 years. Approximately 1 million people would lose their private employer-based insurance coverage -- with more than 500,000 shifting to publicly-funded Medicaid or ACA marketplace coverage, and up to 500,000 becoming uninsured, relative to current law. The bill, H.R. 2575, was unanimously opposed by Ways and Means Democrats at a mark-up on February 4. Republicans have said they plan to soon bring the bill to the House floor.
“This estimate reveals just how dangerous the Republican Affordable Care Act repeal agenda is to the American people," said Ranking Member Sander M. Levin, senior Democrat on the Committee on Ways and Means. “By essentially eliminating any requirement for businesses to contribute to the cost of health coverage, Republicans have just embraced a proposal to put wages and benefits at risk for a million or more hard-working Americans, while substantially increasing the deficit. This reckless legislation raises the deficit, increases the number of uninsured Americans and shifts more people into a publically-funded program that Republicans claim to want to dismantle."
BACKGROUND: Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), large employers that do not offer affordable, adequate health insurance coverage to full-time employees are subject to a penalty that helps defray the public cost of coverage for their uncovered employees, effective in 2015. The law defines full-time as those who work an average of 30 hours a week or more. HR 2575 would change the definition to those averaging 40 hours a week. Doing so affects many more workers and would permit businesses to only slightly tweak work schedules in order to avoid the requirement, leading to loss of revenue, increased federal spending (as workers move from private employer coverage to publically-funded coverage), an increase in the uninsured, and more people on Medicaid and in the Exchanges.
