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Repealing Employer Mandate Won’t Cripple Obamacare, Study Finds
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., center, accompanied by, from left, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn of Texas, speaks with reporters just off the Senate floor on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2013. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
(The Washington Times) – A new study says scrapping one of Obamacare’s most controversial aspects — the employer mandate — would not leave significantly more Americans without health insurance, despite the political fervor that surrounds any attempt to strip down the signature overhaul.
Researchers at the Urban Institute said keeping the provision, which requires companies of more than 50 employees to provide health coverage or pay fines, would only insure about 200,000 more people — a relatively small proportion of the roughly 250 million Americans who hold health insurance.
Congressional Republicans — and some Democrats — say the mandate is killing jobs in their home states and districts, as firms try to stay below the mandate’s 50-employee trigger by dropping workers or refusing to hire more.
They also want the law to define full-time work as 40 hours per week instead of 30. A number of stories have surfaced about part-timers who work between the two benchmarks being reduced to 29 hours or less so they are not counted toward the mandate.
