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House Passes Save American Workers Act of 2015


Earlier this month, the United States House passed H.R. 30 (the Save American Workers Act of 2015) which will impact how the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare) will be applied to employers and employees alike.  

Note that under this bill, it raised the threshold of what exactly constitutes full time work.  Under current law, full time employment is considered to be 30 hours per week.  The Save American Workers Act of 2015, however, would raise that number to 40 hours per week.  

As a result, this bill, if approved by the Senate, would tweak the definition of full time workers who must be offered employer provided health care under the Affordable Care Act. For those unfamiliar with the Affordable Care Act, employers with more then 50 full time workers must offer health care coverage or face penalty payments.  This bill could impact a great deal of employers who would ordinarily be required to provide health care to its workers, but now these employers might be able to skirt that requirement and the penalty for failing to provide health care.  

Unsurprisingly, the bill passed the House 252 - 172, with Republicans and a handful of Democrats pushing the bill through.


Additional information can be found here:  https://www.cbo.gov/publication/49873

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