President Obama, in a completely partisan speech defending Obamacare, claimed Thursday “there’s no widespread evidence” it is hurting jobs. Obama made such an outrageous claim despite the widespread reports that businesses are cutting back worker hours in order to avoid extra costs tied to the law, including a Cincinnati clinic he used as an example during the presidential election.
Obama’s comments come the same day that a round of new polling shows opposition to Obamacare is solid, if not worse, and the president’s job approval is suffering across-the-board.
The charge that ObamaCare is driving Americans into part-time work is one of the central claims that opponents make in arguing for the law to be defunded or delayed. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TX, pounding the claim over and over during his 21-hour floor speech against ObamaCare this week.
While promoting the law to a friendly audience in suburban Washington, Obama brushed off the argument saying, “Most of the stories you’ll hear about how ObamaCare just can’t work, they’re just not based on fact.”
He continued: “They said this would be a disaster in terms of jobs. There’s no widespread evidence that the Affordable Care Act is hurting jobs. … Reforming health care’s going to help the economy over the long-term.”
The claim even contradicts what union leaders have been telling the White House and Democratic lawmakers for months. In a widely noted letter to Democratic leaders over the summer, the heads of the Teamsters and other unions argued that “perverse incentives” were hurting jobs.
Unless the law is changed, they wrote, “the ACA will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40-hour workweek that is the backbone of the American middle-class.”
They, and many employers across the country, point to provisions of the law that would require businesses with 50 or more full-time workers to provide health insurance to those workers. The argument is that businesses are deciding to make more workers qualify as part-time by reducing their hours to fewer than 30 a week.
“Numerous employers have begun to cut workers’ hours to avoid this obligation, and many of them are doing so openly,” the union leaders wrote.
The Obama administration, in a surprise move, delayed the employer mandate by a year. But that hasn’t stopped businesses from cutting hours, because they operate in a real world environment, making long-term business decisions.
Investor’s Business Daily has compiled a list of more than 300 employers that have cut worker hours or staffing levels, many as recently as this month.
Among them was SeaWorld, in my state of Florida, cutting back part-time hours from 32 to 28 per week.
The Washington Free Beacon reported Wednesday on a South Carolina cleaning business claiming it will hire only part-time workers in order to stay under the 50-worker threshold.
Obama was promoting the law in Maryland in advance of the Oct. 1 launch of the so-called insurance “exchanges.” These are regulated marketplaces where Americans will be able to shop for approved insurance plans – enrollment begins Tuesday.
Obama tried to counter “misinformation” about the law, and noted: “If you already have health care, you don’t have to do anything.”
