Senator: Key health care change is win-win

U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) told an audience of National Restaurant Association members that changing the Affordable Care Act’s definition of “full time” from 30 to 40 hours would benefit both restaurants and their employees.

Donnelly, lead co-sponsor of the “Forty Hours is Full Time Act,” with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), made the comments in a speech Wednesday during the NRA’s 2014 Public Affairs Conference. The legislation aims to bring the health care law more in line with workplace realities, he said. The 30-hour definition could limit opportunities and flexibility for employees and make running a business “endlessly more complicated” for employers accustomed to a 40-hour workweek, he said. Employees, Donnelly said, will benefit from a 40-hour work week through the opportunity to work more hours, earn more money and gain more experience.

“We have an opportunity to step up and make things more simple, in a bipartisan way,” Donnelly said. “It’s our job to provide certainty. If it’s going well for [businesses], it’s going well for the country.”

Donnelly’s speech helped kick off a day in which nearly 700 restaurant professionals made visits to their members of Congress to discuss health care, immigration reform, taxes and other legislative issues that affect restaurants. He encouraged restaurant operators to address the health care law’s full-time definition during their visits.

“Tell [members of Congress] that 40 hours is full-time,” Donnelly said. “Ask them what a full-time workweek was when they worked in the private sector. If they say 30 hours, it wasn’t really a full-time job in the private sector.”

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) also spoke to conference attendees on Wednesday and thanked restaurant operators for helping to bring problems with the 30-hour full-time definition to the attention of Congress.

“We heard from everyone in your industry on how [the 30-hour full-time definition] was hurting people,” Cantor said. “I thank you for doing it, because it’s important.” In March, the House of Representatives passed the “Save American Workers Act,” which changes the health care law’s full-time definition to 40 hours.

“We took up that bill in the House and passed it, premised on the notion of an America that works for everybody,” Cantor said. “There are too many people who don’t have a job to go to, or who don’t have the skills to rise in an industry. We want people, such as you, to put capital to work to create these jobs.”

White House offers some employers transition relief under health care law

Some employers will receive relief under the Affordable Care Act's employer mandate next year, the White House announced today.

The ACA’s employer mandate eventually will require employers of 50 or more full-time-equivalent employees to either offer health benefits to their full-time employees or face possible penalties. The mandate originally was due to take effect in 2014, but the White House last summer moved the effective date to 2015.

In a final rule issued today to explain how the mandate will work, the Obama Administration said that employers with 50 to 99 full-time-equivalent employees won't be subject to the law’s employer-mandate penalties until 2016.

This change, and other changes in the final rule, will provide additional flexibility for employers, especially those at or near the 50 FTE-employee definition of a “large employer” under the ACA. The National Restaurant Association has been pressing regulators for these changes and will continue to do so. The NRA also continues to advocate for structural changes in the law that only Congress can address, such as the definition of full-time employee.

According to Treasury Department officials, other provisions of the final rule:

• Make permanent the "look-back measurement method:" The final rule gives covered employers the option of using a look-back period to measure the full- or part-time status of variable-hour and seasonal employees. This measurement method can give employers more stability and predictability in knowing which employees are eligible for health care coverage under the law. The Treasury Department also clarified that seasonal employees in positions working six months or less in a year generally aren’t considered full-time employees.
  
• Offer transition relief for certain employer penalties: Penalty "A" will apply under the law to covered employers who fail to offer minimum essential coverage to “substantially all” of their full-time employees. For 2015, the Treasury Department says "substantially all" means employers must offer coverage to at least 70 percent of full-time employees. Starting in 2016, covered employers must offer coverage to 95 percent of their full-time employees to avoid Penalty A.
• Offer transition relief for employers with non-calendar-year health plans. For covered employers who offer non-calendar-year plans, the final rule clarifies that the employer mandate will take effect on the first day of their plan year in 2015, rather than Jan. 1, 2015.

The National Restaurant Association said the final rule provided additional relief for some employers and thanked the Treasury Department for working with the NRA and the Employers for Flexibility in Health Care Coalition to provide flexibility in the rule.

See the Treasury Department's press statement and fact sheet for more information. The National Restaurant Association will update its Health Care Headquarters with further analysis of the final rule.
Still to come: The Treasury Department has not yet finalized major new reporting requirements for employers under the law. The first information reports will be required in early 2016, based on data tracked in 2015. The National Restaurant Association reiterated its concern that these rules be as streamlined as possible, since these could contain significant compliance costs for restaurants.

The NRA also called on Congress to address other parts of the law. As restaurants nationwide struggle with ACA implementation, challenges remain that now only Congress can address. The NRA asks Congress to come together in a bipartisan manner to better align the definition a full-time employee with current business practices, eliminate the duplicative automatic-enrollment provision, and simplify the determination of a small business under the law.

For continuing updates on the law, visit the NRA’s Health Care Headquarters.