On the first day of the 114th Congress, the House voted unanimously to enact a minor change to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's employer mandate.
Under the proposed legislation, veterans who already have healthcare coverage would not be included in the tally of employees for purposes of determining whether a business is subject to financial penalties for failing to offer coverage.
Passage of the “Hire More Heroes Act of 2015,” sponsored by Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), was the first of two votes on the employer mandate expected this week. The other legislation—which would change the definition of full-time work for purposes of applying the mandate from 30 hours a week to 40 hours a week—promises to be more contentious.
“Only a law as bad as Obamacare would penalize a small business for hiring a veteran,” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the new chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, said during the floor debate on the bill that would remove veterans from businesses' worker counts.
Similar legislation cleared the House last year with just one dissenting vote but was never taken up by the Senate. With Republicans now in control of the Senate, the legislation is likely to come up for a vote in that chamber.
Under the Affordable Care Act, businesses with at least 100 employees must offer coverage this year to most workers or face a financial penalty. In 2016, the employer mandate will apply to businesses with 50 or more employees. Veterans who have coverage through the Veteran Affairs Department or the Defense Department would not count toward those tallies if the legislation backed by the House becomes law.
The proposal to change the law's definition of full-time employment has sparked a backlash among conservatives. Writing last year in the National Review, Yuval Levin noted that the number of workers who clock between 40 and 44 hours a week is far more than the number who put in 30 to 34 hours a week. That means many more workers could be at risk of having their hours cut by an employer seeking to avoid paying for healthcare coverage if the definition of full-time work is changed.
“That would make for a worse effect on workers and on the economy,” Levin wrote. “So by setting the definition lower, Obamacare's architects were trying to mitigate the damaging effects of the employer mandate some, and by setting it higher Republicans would be worsening those effects.”
That argument has gained traction among some conservatives, who would prefer to simply abolish the employer mandate altogether. It's an early indication that Republicans could struggle to coalesce around a healthcare agenda even though they have full control of Congress. The 40-hour workweek legislation is scheduled to come up for a vote on Thursday.
But even if it passes, the White House has indicated that a veto will be forthcoming. That could set up the first test of whether Democrats will stick with the president in upholding controversial provisions of the healthcare law. When the 40-hour workweek bill came up for a vote last year, 18 Democrats joined Republicans in supporting the legislation.
"This proposed change would actually do a lot of harm, not just to the Affordable Care Act but to a substantial number of workers across the country," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said on Tuesday.
Follow Paul Demko on Twitter: @MHpdemko
