When the people who were negotiating the details of the Obamacare packages that passed back in 2010 got to what would qualify as providing health care under the mandate for companies that are larger than 50 employees, there wasn’t a lot of disagreement. Instead, it was decided that the companies that were providing people with jobs that had scheduled hours of more than 30 hours a week, would not have to provide health care for those workers.
Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove wrote about the impact that this decision has had on organized labor leaders as their workers start to realize that they will not or may not have to be covered under the new plan.
Three major unions have come together to ask the Obama administration to make substantial and rapid changes to the agreements so that the sanctity of the 40 hour work week will be maintained. There complaints became apparent after going back into negotiations with companies that were armed with information about the latest Obamacare implementation strategies. In effect, it became apparent that some companies may be inclined to cut hours for many workers so that they can avoid paying health care for the majority of them.
For those workers that have already started seeking medical debt help because of their lack of quality health insurance, there is a quandary also. If they do not maintain a 40 hour a week job, they will not qualify under the larger employer health insurance plan. If they have two 20 hour a week jobs, they will still need to supply their own health care plan.
Fortunately, under Obamacare, they do have options in the private insurance pool. The only difference is that with companies apparently primed to avoid some insurance coverage decisions, the people who can least afford it, will end up paying for some of that coverage. Learn about your debt relief options at Navidebt.org.
It doesn’t look like industry health care plans are starting to get ready for a battle with the unions over this though. It may be the case that given the Obama administration’s proclivity towards making mistakes and then immediately fixing them, they assume that the President’s actual interest was in safeguarding worker jobs and not sacrificing them. So to battle over something that will likely be changed anyway, means throwing industry money away.
Instead, it appears that both sides will take a wait and see approach as far as the President is concerned and save their energy for the hearings that do involve making changes to the package of health care reforms that has already been vetted and approved by the Supreme Court.
