Health care and your paycheck

College students across the country flocked to minimum wage jobs to stash some cash for their looming tuition costs this summer.

Most tried to take all the hours they could get. In the past, students could push over 40 hours or more and rack up some major money.

But for some this summer, that was not a possibility.

The Affordable Care Act, better known as “ObamaCare,” established a new provision requiring companies with 50 or more employees to provide health coverage to those who work 30 hours or more per week. If they don’t comply, businesses face fines and other repercussions.

The Affordable Care Act was signed into law in March 2010 and upheld by the Supreme Court in June 2012. While some provisions of the Affordable Care Act are currently in effect, others will not be implemented until 2015. As a result, most businesses are already trying to prepare because of the bill’s complexities.
Whether you are Barack Obama’s No. 1 fan, or vehemently opposed to him and his policies, there are pros and cons to this aspect of the Affordable Care Act. 

Full-time employees and managers will now have health coverage for themselves and their families, finally putting some of the tax dollars that are already taken out of their pay checks to good use.

This gives some who might not have been able to previously pay for insurance, but who are still contributing members of society, a chance to take care of themselves. This part of the law will also hold businesses accountable for the well-being of their personnel.

Instead of letting hardworking employees fend for themselves in emergency waiting rooms, businesses now have to lend a hand so workers have a regular physician.

It also provides a new approach to the unstable economy. Since businesses are hiring fewer full-time and more part-time employees, more Americans have a chance at a job. This can lead to a decrease in the overall unemployment level in the U.S.
On the downside, those who are seasonal summer workers can only work 29 hours a week, making saving for college a longer process.

Businesses have also found loopholes — some have made all staffers part-time to avoid paying for health coverage or fines. Health providers are also worried that the health care field will become a bureaucracy, making health care less about the patient and more about the red tape and policy of insurance and ObamaCare.

Next summer, whether you are entering the work- force or gearing up for another semester in the wonderful town of Bloomington, the Affordable Care Act will effect you.

If you get that big kid job, congratulations, your employer will have to provide some sort of health coverage for all of those hard-working hours you put in. If you are returning to Bloomington again next fall and need to make large stacks of money, you might want to buckle down and get two jobs to rake in those hours.

— andlzimm@indiana.edu.
Follow columnist Andrea Zimmerman on Twitter
@AndreaLZimm.