Heads I Win, Tails We Lose

Not too long ago the nation, after much back and forth, arrived at a watered-down version of  health care, which put us on a somewhat more equal footing with the other industrial democracies in the world.  It wasn't Medicare-For-All, but it was a start. At least some of the egregious holes in our decrepit health care system would be plugged up. People with pre-existing conditions would not be denied coverage, and a universal component, health care exchanges, would be put in place, even though run through the needless, parasitic gauntlet of publicly-traded health care middlemen/insurers. Medicare is delivered to our citizens on a relative shoestring of overhead costs,  generally reported as three or four percent, while the Affordable Care Act capped for-profit middlemen at 18% of overhead.

The primary objective of the Affordable Care Act was to move the millions of Americans without health coverage to a place where they did not face that vulnerability. Well over half of personal bankruptcies are the result of an avalanche of medical bills hitting the uninsured.

Because the United States has refused the common sense solution of the single-payer health coverage model, we rely on an employer-provided health coverage model.  In a fairly straightforward provision the ACA set out, employer plans would cover all full time workers and part-time workers who clock in at 30 or more hours per week, or 130 hours per month.

As the deadline for meeting the requirements of the law approaches, and even as the deadline for the implementation of the law is now moved back another year to January 1, 2015, employers are faced with a choice. Shall they meet the spirit of the law or will they duck behind the letter of the law?

Rather than meeting the spirit of the law by providing health care to part time workers, some employers are choosing the letter of the law to mean, "let's cut hours and keep the workers outside the definition of the law." That may be helpful in padding the bottom line for private companies, or avoiding revenue increases in the case of government workers, but it does not meet the intent of the ACA mandate.

Many part time workers can only find part time work, while some, because of family obligations, choose to only work part time. The part time status is thus both a burden and a blessing. The burden/blessing equation flows both ways, however. Employers pay out less in wages, and so stretch their budgets for greater profit or, in the case of public employers, for tighter efficiency and avoidance of fiscal responsibility.

As we approach the budget season for the City of New Albany, we need to keep in mind that although the Affordable Care Act is a weak version of what we need in this country, it is a start. We owe an obligation to the City's workers, both full time and part time, to provide for them what the law demands. We don't need to play the Artful Dodger and duck our responsibilities. By scheduling part time workers to fewer hours, we may force valuable employees out the door toward the door of a more equitable employer. In the process, we may lose experience, continuity and commitment which will cost more to replace than simply meeting the standards of our nation's laws, as we should.