Momentum Builds for Revising the ACA’s Full-time Employee Definition

On Jan. 28, the House Ways and Means Committee held a congressional hearing on the impact of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) employer mandate definition of full-time employees. AGC joined the Employers for Flexibility in Health Care coalition in a letter to the committee highlighting that certain industries, including construction, have workforces of a variable nature and this makes complying with the new requirements of the ACA especially difficult. The reliance on part-time, temporary and seasonal workers with fluctuating and unpredictable work hours, as well as unpredictable lengths of service, have the potential to further disrupt employer provided health coverage under the law. AGC has been advocating the ACA’s definition of full-time employee status of 30 hours to be amended to a threshold that is more in line with common employment practices, such as 40 hours per week. There are several pieces of bipartisan legislation that address the ACA’s full-time definition: H.R. 2575 - Save American Workers Act of 2013; H.R. 2988 - Forty Hours Is Full Time Act of 2013; and S. 1188 - Forty Hours Is Full Time Act of 2013. AGC is encouraged that members of Congress from both sides of the aisle are recognizing the impact the full-time definition could have on the nation’s workforce. AGC hopes to see legislative action before the employer mandate provisions of the ACA are fully implemented and enforced, beginning in 2015. For more information on AGC’s advocacy efforts on ensuring the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act limits costs and complexity, while providing acceptable options for employers, click here. For more information, please contact Jim Young at (202) 547-0133 or youngj@agc.org.