Obamacare is costing hours and jobs. It says so right there in the New York Times.
WASHINGTON — Cities, counties, public schools and community colleges around the country have limited or reduced the work hours of part-time employees to avoid having to provide them with health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, state and local officials say.
The cuts to public sector employment, which has failed to rebound since the recession, could serve as a powerful political weapon for Republican critics of the health care law, who claim that it is creating a drain on the economy.
They claim it, because it is. You just said so, New York Times. Dontcha read your own stuff?
Apparently all these government entities are just doing it wrong. It can’t be Obamacare’s fault.
Mark D. Benigni, the superintendent of schools in Meriden, Conn., and a board member of the American Association of School Administrators, said in an interview that the new health care law was having “unintended consequences for school systems across the nation.”
How do you know that they’re “unintended”?
Let’s hop through the story.
In Medina, Ohio, about 30 miles south of Cleveland, Mayor Dennis Hanwell said the city had lowered the limit for part-time employees to 29 hours a week, from 35. Workers’ wages were reduced accordingly, he said.
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Lawrence County, in western Pennsylvania, reduced the limit for part-time employees to 28 hours a week, from 32. Dan Vogler, the Republican chairman of the county Board of Commissioners, said the cuts affected prison guards and emergency service personnel at the county’s 911 call center.
It’s charming, now the NYT inserts the party affiliation here and there to suggest that that’s what’s driving the cuts — not the law that the Democrats pushed through.
Now let’s try our best not to gloat, as unions that supported Obamacare find out what’s in it.
William J. Lipkin, an adjunct professor of American history and political science at Union County College in Cranford, N.J., said: “The Affordable Care Act, rather than making health care affordable for adjunct faculty members, is making it more unaffordable. Colleges are not giving us access to health care, and our hours are being cut, which means our income is being cut. We are losing on both ends.”
The American Federation of Teachers lists on its website three dozen public colleges and universities in 15 states that it says have restricted the work assignments of adjunct or part-time faculty members to avoid the cost of providing health insurance.
Clearly, they’re just all doing it wrong. Obamacare was supposed to usher in a time of plenty, when the doctor would lay down with the insurance adjuster, they would beat skyrocketing deductibles into manageable payment plans, and all was to be right with the fully insured world.
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