Comments on: “As Health Law Changes Loom, A Shift To Part-Time Workers”

By: Bob Lipton

Bob Lipton — Sun, 05 May 2013 18:30:45 +0000

It may be affordable vis-a-vis the competition, Hugo, but it presumes that the consumer will pay any price for one’s product/service.

Bob

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 05 May 2013 16:16:06 +0000

As Prof. Reynolds would say, “unexpectedly.”

By: Hugo S. Cunningham

Hugo S. Cunningham — Thu, 02 May 2013 22:01:59 +0000

The 30-hour cutoff is dumb for reasons cited above. Instead, offer employers a choice between buying employee health insurance or paying a 7% payroll tax for Medicaid. That would eliminate gamesmanship over hours per week, but is eminently affordable, especially if one’s competition has to pay the same tax .

7% (or 8% maximum) of a low wage would not pay a low-wage worker’s entire Medicaid cost, but why should it? Society is still better off if he is gainfully employed, rather than languishing on a street corner.

By: Anne

Anne — Thu, 02 May 2013 21:15:12 +0000

Unfortunately, the shift to part-time workers is not new. Many companies have avoided offering health care to employees for years – especially in the service and retail industries. The biggest problem those in the service and retail industries have is not that they can only find part-time work with no health care, it is that the part-time work they do find has variable hours which does not allow them to work more than one part-time job. When you’re only making minimum wage or slightly above – even 40 hours/week isn’t going to cover the cost of living. I seriously don’t know how people do it.

By: Walter Olson

Walter Olson — Thu, 02 May 2013 20:14:03 +0000

Following the example of the well-known right wingers at NPR, the well-known right-wingers at the Los Angeles Times are on the same story today. ("Part-timers to lose pay amid health act's new math.") The first example they give, as Steven Hayward notes, is from the City of Long Beach. It's almost as if all these employers, public and private alike, are responding to economic incentives or something.

By: RLVon

RLVon — Thu, 02 May 2013 18:11:55 +0000

It amazes me how right wingers love to blame “Obamacare” for the ills of the world. Companies worth millions (and some worth billions), such as Walmart, Papa John’s Pizza, Jimmy John’s, Popeye’s, The franchise owner of the company that owns Applebee’s, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, Darden Restaurants (which owns Olive Garden and Red Lobster), Regal Entertainment Cinemas, and multiple others are using this as an excuse to screw their employee out of health care.

And guess who will be picking up the tab for these uninsured? The employees. Tax payers, who are paying corporate welfare to these companies, are going to end up subsidizing health care for these unemployed.

By: No Name Guy

No Name Guy — Thu, 02 May 2013 16:41:18 +0000

“presumably unforeseen”……yeah, right…..only by those blue pill popping types. Red pill types knew this was the logical outcome.

By: Aric

Aric — Thu, 02 May 2013 15:15:29 +0000

Every time I hear this story, I have wonder if people were similarly blindsided when the 40-hour workweek was implemented. Did they all think they’d get huge raises, only to find out that greedy employers were instead limiting them to 40 hours?

By: Doug

Doug — Thu, 02 May 2013 15:09:07 +0000

and forget about working for two companies. what company is going to want that?

By: marco73

marco73 — Thu, 02 May 2013 14:17:02 +0000

Restaurant and retail staff will adjust, and will probably find themselves working 20 hours in 1 place and 20 hours in another. This has been well documented for months.
Wait until the split part-time job shows up in white collar positions. Remember how wonderful it would be if companies were flexible and allowed mommies to share jobs, so they could be available for their children? We’re about to get that in spades. But so sorry, forget about company paid health care.