Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) co-sponsored legislation on Thursday that would restore the 40-hour standard for full-time employment and exempt small businesses from the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate.
Sen. Michael Enzi (R-Wyo.) introduced the Small Business Fairness in Health Care Act in an effort to roll back regulations and policies that increase costs and force businesses to layoff employees, or not hire new ones.
“President Obama chose to delay the employer mandate of the healthcare law because it will be a burden on businesses and job creators,” Portman said. “Rather than delaying its implementation for businesses, this law should be repealed for everyone. Until then, I will fight to make sure that this onerous and complex law harms as few Ohioans as possible. Our legislation (introduced on Thursday) would ensure that more small businesses across Ohio are exempted from entering the costly healthcare exchanges that will stand in the way of them expanding and hiring more workers….”
The measure would repeal the ACA’s 30-hour standard for full-time employment and expand the scope of the employer mandate exception to include small businesses that are defined as a “small business concern” under the Small Business Act.
“…When Obamacare redefined full-time work as 30 hours per week, many small businesses reduced their employees’ hours and pay in an attempt to skirt the healthcare law’s onerous regulations,” Portman said. “The last thing we want to do during an already weak economy is provide an incentive for employers to cut back on work.”