WASHINGTON — A bill that would redefine a full-time work week under the Affordable Care Act as 40 hours instead of 30 actually amounts to a break for corporations, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) argued in a hearing Thursday.
Under the legislation, businesses would be obligated to provide health care only to employees who work 40 hours a week or more, rather than 30. Republicans and some Democrats have backed the bill, saying the current 30-hour standard offers an incentive to cut workers’ hours to get around Obamacare’s requirement that full-time employees receive insurance. Supporters have pointed to numerous instances of employers — from public schools to restaurant businesses — doing exactly that.
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But Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) noted that Holtz-Eakin is now the president of an organization called the American Action Forum, which is part of a coalition of groups dedicated to repealing Obamacare.
“I’m not sure that when you’re aligned with a group that has a banner that says ‘Help us stop Obamacare,’ that your estimates are necessarily in good faith,” Franken said.
