Local Governments Reeling Under ObamaCare Costs

After losing my full time job with great health care benefits and a great salary to match in May of 2010, I endured unemployment for a time and finally found a job in retail. All last year I worked full time. As of January of this year, my retail employer hired three additional people and cut all sales associates to less than thirty hours a week. Now many of my coworkers have experienced the reduced wages that comes from working fewer hours, they are asking why it’s happening. At the time, may of the young people on our staff were blaming my retail company for being selfish and greedy.

I said that if anyone was to blame, it was the new ObamaCare mandate that forced all employers to pay for health insurance or pay a $3,000 fine. If you voted for politicians in Ohio, our district congressman, John Boccieri voted for it and as did our U.S. Senator Sharrod Brown. In 2010, voters rejected John Boccieri because he voted for ObamaCare and have yet to get rid of Sharrod Brown. I know that Brown will never get my vote in the future because of his support of the Affordable Care Act.

If you did not vote in 2010 or in 2012, then you voted for the reduced wages passed by our current legislators. Ultimately, it’s the voters who allow Democrats and RINO Republicans to vote for these ever expanding federal programs have themselves to blame for the bad economy.

As the only senior citizen in our work group, I have learned that voting is always important. Looking at the consequences of your votes usually means reading the news, paying attention to legislation being considered in Washington. Most of my coworkers had not paid attention to Washington lawmakers and the decisions they made. They decided it was not important to vote in presidential elections to be all that important.

The lesson to be learned is to be informed and vote. No other issue has hurt the wide range of people economically as much as the affordable care act.

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Local Governments Reeling Under ObamaCare Costs

By JOHN MERLINE, INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 08:05 AM ET

When Regal Entertainment Group (RGC) in April blamed ObamaCare for the fact that it was cutting some of its workers’ hours, backers of the law mounted a furious backlash against the theater chain, among other things filling its Facebook page with boycott threats.

“Greed and selfishness make me sick,” one of them said.

Darden Restaurants (DRI) felt this intense heat last year after suggesting it might shift to more part-time work to minimize the cost of the law’s mandate that companies offer coverage to all their full-time workers. CEO Clarence Otis even blamed its lowered outlook for 2013 in part on “recent negative media coverage” over “how we might accommodate health care reform.”

President Obama gestures as he talks about the Obamacare in San Jose, Calif., on June 13, 2013. Obama’s health care law is called the Affordable Care…

President Obama gestures as he talks about the Obamacare in San Jose, Calif., on June 13, 2013. Obama’s health care law is called the Affordable Care… View Enlarged Image

Yet while private companies are getting all this unwelcome and hostile attention, local governments across the country have been quietly doing exactly the same thing — cutting part-time hours specifically so they can skirt ObamaCare’s costly employer mandate, while complaining about the law in some of the harshest terms anyone has uttered in public.

The result is that part-time government workers — many of them low-income — face pay cuts that can top $3,000 a year, and yet will still be left without employer-provided benefits.

Here is just a small sampling of local news reports about what local government officials are saying about ObamaCare, and the steps they’re taking to avoid or minimize its costs.

Phillipsburg, Kan.: “School administrators here say they are alarmed and confounded by the looming new costs they face with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act,” according to the Kaiser Health Institute News Service. Chris Hipp, director of a Kansas special education cooperative, warned that ObamaCare’s costs “could put us all out of business or change significantly how we do business,” adding that “we are not built to pay full health benefits for noncertified folks who work a little more than 1,000 hours a year.”

Dearborn, Mich.: “If we had to provide health care and other benefits to all of our employees, the burden on the city would be tremendous,” said Mayor John O’Reilly, explaining why the city is cutting its more than 700 part-time and seasonal workers down to 28 hours a week. “The city is like any private or public employer having to adjust to changes in the law.”

Indiana: “What I’m seeing across the state is school districts, unfortunately, having to reduce the hours that they are having some of their folks work, primarily so they don’t have to worry about the (ObamaCare) penalties, or they don’t have to provide them health insurance, which would be very, very costly,” said Dennis Costerison, executive director of the Indiana Association of School Business Officials. Ft. Wayne Community Schools, for example, are cutting yours for nearly three-quarters of its part-time aides.

Omaha, Neb.: “The biggest problem is everyone said that ObamaCare is only going to help cut costs. Nothing could be further from the truth,” said Mike Kennedy , who serves on the board of Millard Public Schools, just outside the city, and figures ObamaCare will raise its costs by $400,000. A neighboring school district is reducing hours for up to 281 part-time employees to avoid $2.5 million in new costs, which will result in pay cuts of up to $3,300.

Long Beach, Calif.: “We are in the same boat as many employers,” said Tom Modica, Long Beach’s director of government affairs. “We need to maintain the programs and service levels we have now.” So the city is going to cut hours for 200 part-time workers so it doesn’t have to pay $2 million to provide health benefits.

Salt Lake City: “With new provisions in the Affordable Care Act, there was going to be a significant burden upon Granite School District and our taxpayers to offset the cost of benefits,” said spokesman Ben Horsley. He says covering the district’s part-time workers would cost about $14 million, and so about 1,000 will have their hours cut to 29 a week.

Cape May County, N.J.: “A number of people in the nation who read it are recognizing how detrimental (ObamaCare is) to government and private employers out there,” said Gerald Thornton, the county’s finance director who is trying to figure out how to budget for the law.

Virginia: “The Commonwealth of Virginia is grappling with the same issues that many businesses in the private sector are as they struggle to deal with the costs imposed by the Affordable Care Act,” Paul Logan, a spokesman for Gov. McDonnell, said. The state is requiring that about 7,000 part-time government workers put in no more than 29 hours a week.

Texas: “The Affordable Care Act has added so much complexity and administrative burden that there is nothing affordable about it,” said Jared Pope, who is consulting with Texas municipal governments on ObamaCare. Dallas expects its health costs to climb $2.1 million next year. Plano is cutting hours to avoid $1 million in new costs.

Kern County, Calif.: “It will affect multiple departments, a majority of departments,” said the county’s deputy administrative officer Eric Nisbett, explaining that unless the county cut worker hours for 800 employees, ObamaCare would cost it up to $8 million a year.

Allegheny County, Pa.: “There’s frustration and anger and sadness and resentment, you know, but you don’t have a voice,” said adjunct English professor Clint Benjamin in the wake of the Community College of Allegheny County’s decision to cut hours for about 400 adjunct faculty and other employees so it wouldn’t have to pay $6 million in ObamaCare-related fees next year.

Medina, Ohio: “We feel bad as a city administration and as a council in having to cut hours from 35 to 29,” Medina Mayor Dennis Hanwell said. “We have the budget to pay the people, but we do not have the budget to pay for the health care.” If they hadn’t made that cut, the city faced up to $1 million in new health costs courtesy of ObamaCare.

Birmingham, Mich. Commissioner Gordon Rinschler may have summed up best the reaction that countless businesses and governments are having to ObamaCare, saying: “We simply can’t afford the Affordable Care Act.”

Read More At Investor’s Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/061913-660419-local-governments-cut-hours-to-avoid-obamacare-mandate.htm#ixzz2WfIXAImB

Source: http://www.gopexiles.com/?p=8803