Enzi: Obamacare forcing Wyoming employers to cut hours
Cites Rock Springs School District as example
by Senator Enzi media release
January 22, 2015
Washington, D.C. – Employers are cutting employees hours and are hesitant to create new jobs in order to avoid Obamacare mandates. During a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing today (Thursday, January 22), U.S. Senator Mike Enzi, R-Wyoming, spoke about how the strict Obamacare requirements that force employers to provide healthcare to their employees are hurting more than they are helping.
By defining a 30-hour work week as "full-time", Enzi explained how Obamacare is forcing business to cut employees’ hours in order to stay in business. This, according to Enzi, forces individuals to get two jobs to make up the difference. The senator discussed how a school district in Rock Springs has had to cut bus drivers and coaches in order to avoid hitting the Obamacare requirement.
"I did a tele-town hall meeting last night and the very first call was from Rock Springs, Wyoming," said Enzi. "And it was from a person working for the school district and they wanted me to know the difficulties they were having with bus drivers and coaches who are kind of volunteer or contract workers, but not really part of the school district, never expected to get any health insurance out of it, but are now placing the district in a situation where they are going to have to expend that or eliminate the service."
Enzi also noted how businesses are not expanding and creating new jobs out of fear they will trigger the Obamacare mandate.
"One of the problems I am seeing in Wyoming with the health insurance requirements is that when businesses have 50 employees that are working over 30 hours or more, then they come under this law," said Enzi. "For a start-up business, it is a particularly big problem. I have run into a number of people that said ‘Man, I got this great location in the next town over and a good price on the building. What do you think about me moving over there and starting it?’ My first questions is ‘how many employees do you have?’ and ‘How many is it going to take?’. And there answer is usually 45 at the current place, and they will need (another) 45 at the new place. They so far have all decided against expanding their business, so there are a lot of jobs going lacking out there."
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