wingedwheel

Dec 31 2014, 09:46 AM

Yes a win could possibly cause some backlash. But the law is the law. The law can't be changed by executive fiat. When elected officials pass bad laws they can either repeal it or change it by amending it in the house and senate and sending it to the president. The courts job is to interpret the law as written. But I am not sure that is what they will do. I think Roberts will bail out 0bama and the democrats again. I also think some republican will be happy to see him do it in this case.

wingedwheel

Dec 31 2014, 10:17 AM

And being forced to buy a product that they don't want. That has went up in drastically in price since the law was signed into law. Loaded up with stuff they don't need. And paying for stuff for other people that they don't approve of. Yeah those people.

Quote:

 

http://joshblackman.com/blog/2014/12/30/amicus-brief-in-king-v-burwell-obamacare-and-the-rule-of-law/

Amicus Brief in King v. Burwell: Obamacare and the Rule of Law

On March 4, Obamacare will make its third trip to the Supreme Court in the case of King v. Burwell. In NFIB v. Sebelius (2012), the Supreme Court narrowly upheld the constitutionality of Obamacare’s individual mandate, but invalidated its Medicaid expansion. In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014), the Court found that Obamacare’s contraception mandate violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. However, King v. Burwell is different from its predecessors. Rather than challenging the legality of the law Congress designed, this case challenges the legality of how President Obama has implemented the law–or more precisely, modified, delayed, and suspended it. The Cato Institute and I have filed an amicus brief in this case to alert the Court to the administrative, separation-of-powers, and rule of law violations attending the ACA’s implementation. [Highlighted just to make it clear what side he is on.]

Through a series of memoranda, regulations, and even blog posts, the President has disregarded statutory text, ignored legislative history, and remade Obamacare in his own image. This case focuses on tax credits, one of the key pillars of the law that the administration has toppled.

To assist those who lack employer-sponsored insurance, Congress appropriated subsidies for residents of states choosing to create exchanges. Congress could not command states to establish them, so it used the withholding of subsidies as a stick to nudge states in the right direction. The statute expresses this intent in language that is clear as day. Individuals can receive these credits if they are “covered by a qualified health plan . . . enrolled in through an Exchange established by the State.” In other words, if a state fails to establish an exchange, and a resident buys a plan through the federal HealthCare.gov, he would not be eligible for the subsidies. Congress structured these growing pains for the ACA: states that do not establish exchanges would be forced to swallow a bitter pill, and their residents would be denied subsidies. The ACA’s Medicaid expansion plan, which the Supreme Court invalidated, operated with a similar carrot-and-stick approach.

These results were unacceptable to an administration intent on pain-free implementation. The ACA was not designed to expand access to health insurance at all costs. Through its oversimplification of how the ACA works as a whole, the government incorrectly assumes that the 111th Congress shared President’s Obama’s evolving vision of how to expand access to healthcare. This bird’s-eye view of the forest ignores the trees—all 535 of them. To paraphrase Inigo Montoya, Congress didn’t think “expand coverage” means what the executive thinks it means.

To obviate the uncomfortable compromises Congress reached, the executive again engaged in a lawmaking process, issuing a rule that nullifies the statute. Under the new “IRS Rule,” subsidies would be available in all states “regardless of whether the Exchange is established and operated by a State . . . or by HHS.” As documented in a detailed report by the House Oversight Committee, the executive branch engaged in a multi-agency rulemaking process based on a convoluted series of linguistic contortions without any meaningful analysis of the ACA’s history. At least one government attorney recognized that there “was no direct statutory authority to interpret [a federal] exchange as an ‘Exchange established by the State.’” But such concerns were squelched, and the rogue rule was released.
[Absent "direct statutory authority to interpret [a federal] exchange as an ‘Exchange established by the State,’” they decided to take the Indirect approach of reinterpreting what absurd means!]

Through the IRS Rule, the executive emulates Humpty Dumpty. “When I use a word . . . it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more or less.” Alice asked: “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” Id. The Supreme Court must answer no, and vacate the IRS rule that provides subsidies in states that did not establish exchanges.

Suspension of laws through broad transitional relief, blanket enforcement waivers under the guise of prosecutorial discretion, and regulations without statutory basis are all species of executive lawmaking that violate the separation of powers. Instead of serving as the legislature’s stewards, the administration has consistently disregarded and modified congressional instructions. Executive lawmaking—which has alas become commonplace—poses a severe threat to the separation-of-powers principles that undergird the Constitution and ultimately the rule of law itself. This problem is endemic, but not limited, to the ACA.

•Individual Mandate- Congress scheduled the individual mandate and its accompany penalty to go into effect on January 1, 2014. However, after its “minimum essential coverage” provision resulted in the cancellation of millions of policies, the President modified, delayed, and suspended the law. Through a letter, the government (1) advised insurers that they could sell non-compliant plans, (2) exempted consumers who bought these non-compliant plans from the mandate/penalty, (3) “encouraged” states to allow insurers to offer non-compliant plans, and (4) barred HHS from serving as a congressionally mandated backstop in the event that steps 1-3 happen. All this happened while the president threatened to veto a two-paragraph bill that would have lawfully accomplished all the above. These executive actions thwarted the very goals Congress articulated. The so-called “administrative fix” is subject to a challenge by the West Virginia.

•Employer Mandate- Congress scheduled the employer mandate and its accompanying penalty to also go into effect on January 1, 2014 for employers with more than 50 employees. However, after the mandate proved popular among businesses, it too was modified, delayed, and suspended–twice. Through a blog post, the administration initially delayed the employer mandate till 2015. But one year wasn’t enough. A few months later, the administration bifurcated the mandate without any statutory authority. Employers with 50 to 100 full time employees would not be subject to the mandate in 2014 or 2015. In 2015, these smaller businesses would not be subject to the penalty so long as 70% of their employees were offered comprehensive coverage. In 2016, and beyond, no penalties were assessed if an employer covered 95% of its employees. Without any statutory authority, the executive completely suspended the employer mandate for 2014, partially waived it for 2015, and decided that in 2016 and beyond the mandate will never be fully implemented as Congress designed. The delay of the employer mandate is subject to a legal challenge by the U.S. House of Representatives. The President may have said more than he intended, referring to his rejiggering of the employer mandate as “making a temporary modification to the health care law” that Congress said “needed to be modified.” The President cannot modify the law.

•Obamacare for Congressional Employees- Under Obamacare, Congress required that Members and their staff purchase plans “offered through an Exchange established under” the ACA. This statute was part of Congress’s balanced design to ensure those in Washington would share the experience of Americans unable to obtain cushy federal benefits. Unsurprisingly, this provision proved unpopular among Hill staffers. Initially, the Office of Personnel Management found that it lacked the authority to offer these subsidized benefits to congressional employees. After President Obama became “personally involved,” however, OPM did a regulatory 180 and issued a rule allowing staffers to buy subsidized plans. This rule, challenged in court by Senator Ron Johnson, was flatly inconsistent with statutory text.

•Obamacare for Territories- Congress implemented the ACA in U.S. territories in a way to render their markets unstable. The territories asked the government to exempt them from these onerous provisions. However, On three separate occasions, however, the government explained to the territories that Congress crafted the provisions to “apply . . . in the territories.” In unequivocal terms, the letter concluded that “HHS has no legal authority to exclude the territories from the guaranteed availability provision of the Affordable Care Act. However meritorious your request might be, HHS is not authorized to choose which provisions . . . might apply to the territories.” What a difference a year makes. One year later, HHS did another regulatory 180 and determined “After a “careful review of this situation and the relevant statutory language” that the provisions ““do not apply to the territories.”

President Obama’s philosophy on executive power has unfortunately become all too clear: (1) Congress passes a statute, (2) the statute is inconsistent with the president’s evolving policy preferences, so (3) the administration modifies or suspends enforcement of the law to achieve a result inconsistent with what Congress designed. This dynamic has lurked in the background of every legal challenge to the ACA, as well as the administration’s policy towards immigration (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability), the Controlled Substance Act and related banking provisions, the National Defense Authorization Act restricting the release of detainees from Guantanamo Bay, the War Powers Act limiting the duration of “hostilities” in Libya, and others (see Gridlock and Executive Power).

In King v. Burwell, the Supreme Court should address the President’s deliberate indifference toward Congress. A ruling to uphold this behavior sets a dangerous precedent for this nascent superstatute, which will be implemented for years to come by different presidents with different views of the law. More troubling, such a precedent could be used in future to license virtually any executive action to modify, amend, or suspend any duly enacted law.If this President can unilaterally bypass statutes he does not agree with, the structural bulwarks designed by our framers crumble into mere parchment barriers.

Quote:

 

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1414191

Predicting the Fallout from King v. Burwell — Exchanges and the ACA

The U.S. Supreme Court's surprise announcement on November 7 that it would hear King v. Burwell struck fear in the hearts of supporters of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). At stake is the legality of an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rule extending tax credits to the 4.5 million people who bought their health plans in the 34 states that declined to establish their own health insurance exchanges under the ACA.1 The case hinges on enigmatic statutory language that seems to link the amount of tax credits to a health plan purchased “through an Exchange established by the State.” According to the plaintiffs in King, that language means that consumers who buy insurance through federally run exchanges don't qualify for subsidies. The Court's decision to hear the case without a split between appellate courts suggests that at least four justices harbor serious doubts about the IRS rule's validity.

Not long after the announcement, however, some voices began questioning whether a decision in King invalidating the rule would matter all that much. Those voices included both proponents of the litigation trying to minimize the chaos it would cause and financial advisors hoping to calm jittery investors. They have argued that the states that refused to create exchanges would, under intense political pressure to restore large tax credits to middle-class citizens, move quickly to do so, and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would help them by relaxing any applicable rules.

We are not so optimistic. If the IRS rule is invalidated — and absent effective contingency planning — a state that has declined to create its own exchange probably won't be able to stave off the immediate destabilization of its insurance market. The Court will probably release its opinion in late June; its decision will take effect 25 days later. At that point, if the challengers prevail, the U.S. Treasury will probably have to stop issuing tax credits to users of federal exchanges. Enrollees who are unable or unwilling to pay the full cost of their insurance premiums could see their coverage terminated, perhaps as soon as 30 days after they fail to make a payment. Those who retain insurance are likely to be sicker than those who drop coverage, which will skew the risk pools and expose insurers to large, unanticipated losses.

Picking up the pieces would not be easy. An exchange is not just a website, and setting one up requires a sizable investment of time and resources. Under the ACA, an exchange must be a government or nonprofit entity with the capacity, among other responsibilities, to consult with stakeholders, grant exemptions from the individual mandate to obtain health insurance coverage, operate a program that helps people navigate the system, and certify, recertify, and decertify qualified health plans.

To avoid the technological challenges that initially dogged HealthCare.gov, states could delegate some responsibilities to the private contractors that run the federal exchanges. Idaho, for example, established its own exchange — a quasi-governmental organization with an 18-member board — even as it used the federal website to process 2014 enrollments.2 Whether a state-established exchange could be an empty shell, with all its functions delegated to the federal marketplace, is much less clear.

Recognizing the difficulties involved in shifting from federal to state exchanges, some observers believe that HHS might deem the seven states with “partnership exchanges” — federally established exchanges partly operated by the states — to have “established” their own exchanges. Any such move, however, could provoke an immediate and forceful legal challenge. Because partnership exchanges were meant to provide an option to states that declined to establish their own exchanges, it would be awkward for the agency to now treat state cooperation as tantamount to establishment. Even if the move passed legal muster, changing the rules for partnership exchanges would still leave 27 states without recourse.

Other observers have suggested that states might seek “state innovation waivers” under the ACA. A waiver allows a state to sidestep certain ACA requirements — including the exchange and premium-tax-credit provisions — in favor of an alternative plan offering similarly comprehensive and affordable coverage. The federal government would then pay the state the same amount of money that its residents would have received under the ACA without a waiver. Per the ACA, however, waivers cannot take effect until 2017, which would leave long coverage gaps. Worse, if the King challengers prevail, people in states without their own exchanges would not be entitled to receive any money in tax credits. Arguably, then, none of that money would be payable to those states under a waiver. Although the administration might have the legal flexibility to avoid this constraint, the operative word here is “might.” Any attempt to work around King is sure to face legal challenges, which would introduce additional uncertainty and delay.

The obstacles to state action do not end there. To ensure that state exchanges meet their obligations, HHS regulations require states to secure conditional approval at least 6.5 months before launch. By the time the Court releases its decision, the deadline for establishing a 2016 exchange will have passed. Although HHS could adjust that deadline, the states would still need to take concrete steps to establish an exchange well before the end of 2015.

Moreover, governors can act on their own only if they can identify a “clear” source of legal authority, according to an HHS blueprint for state-operated exchanges.3 A few governors — including those of Kentucky, New York, and Rhode Island — have proceeded without legislative involvement. But not all governors in the states that declined to establish exchanges have the statutory authority to go it alone. Indeed, at least seven of those states, including Missouri and North Carolina, have flatly prohibited their governors from establishing exchanges.4 Even governors who could identify a legal basis for moving forward would be reluctant to press ahead in the face of legislative resistance, lest they imperil the rest of their political agenda.

In most states, then, legislatures will have to put their imprimatur on state exchanges. Yet only 8 of the 34 states using the federal exchange have legislative sessions extending beyond June (see table)5. In order to avoid a gap in financial assistance for their residents, the other 26 states would need to create an exchange during the 2015 legislative session — well before the Supreme Court is likely to rule. Otherwise, they might be unable to operate their own exchanges until 2017.

Beyond these practical constraints, the states in question may not want to operate their own exchanges. The political climate is hostile to the ACA in nearly all of them. Just seven of them will be led by Democratic governors in 2015; of those governors, all but Delaware's Jack Markell will face a Republican-controlled legislature. Not all Republican governors oppose state-based insurance exchanges: both Rick Snyder of Michigan and Rick Scott of Florida have lent their support to state exchanges. In the November elections, however, the states that would have been considered most likely to establish their own exchanges (in particular, those that expanded Medicaid) either sent Republican governors to the statehouse or saw Republicans increase their margins in the legislature. Many of those Republicans campaigned on their ardent opposition to Obamacare.

Unquestionably, state officials would face enormous pressure — from taxpayers, health plans, and hospitals — to set up exchanges. In a volatile political environment, some states might well do so. But ACA opponents' commitment to resisting the temptation of federal money should not be underestimated: witness the refusal of nearly two dozen states to expand Medicaid even though the federal government would cover almost all the costs.

ACA supporters thus have good reason to worry. For at least several years, and perhaps for much longer, the outcome in King could determine whether millions of people continue to have access to affordable, comprehensive health insurance.

Quote:

 

http://dailycaller.com/2014/12/29/irs-goes-after-nonprofit-hospitals-on-asking-customers-to-pay-bills/print/

IRS Goes After Nonprofit Hospitals On Asking Customers To Pay Bills
Posted By Sarah Hurtubise

The Obama administration announced new rules under Obamacare on Monday that target nonprofit hospitals’ efforts to get paid by their patients.

Nonprofit hospitals, which serve a charitable purpose and are often religiously affiliated, will now be subject to strict rules on when and how they can collect payments from customers, thanks to regulations included in the health-care law. As a condition of their tax-exempt status, these hospitals must “take an active role in improving the health of the communities they serve,” Treasury Department deputy assistant secretary for tax policy Emily McMahon wrote in a blog post Monday.

Under the new IRS rules, the penalty for failing to meet the new standards could even lead hospitals’ tax-exempt status to be revoked entirely.

“Reports that some charitable hospitals have used aggressive debt collection practices, including allowing debt collectors to pursue collections in emergency rooms, have highlighted the need for clear rules to protect patients,” McMahon wrote. “For hospitals to be tax-exempt, they should be held to a higher standard.”

The rules cover a number of Obamacare requirements. For one, hospitals must charge the uninsured the same price for emergency care as those with insurance are “generally billed,” whether they have private coverage, Medicare or Medicaid.
[There is something than can be said for how inflated the bills are if an insurance company has not negotiated lower rates, along with the even lower rates they accept from Medicaid/Medicare, but the target here appears to be forcing the hospitals to give away more care at reduced prices.]

Nonprofit hospitals will be required to have and “widely publicize” a financial assistance program — and will be banned from using certain collection methods until they’ve taken “reasonable efforts” to see whether a patient who hasn’t paid their bill is eligible for assistance. The hospital can’t report unpaid bills to a credit agency or garnish wages until hospital workers themselves have determined whether a customer is financially needy or is just trying to skip out on the payment.

The new regulations don’t stop at active patients. In order to maintain tax-exempt status, nonprofit hospitals now need to actively attempt to handle health problems in their communities.

“Each charitable hospital must conduct and publish a community health needs assessment at least once every three years,” McMahon wrote. “And disclose on the tax form it files annually the steps it is taking to address the health needs identified in the assessment.”

If a hospital fails to live up to the IRS’s new standards, it could have its tax-exempt status revoked. But there’s some leniency — if a misstep appears to be an honest mistake, the hospital can “correct and publicly disclose” its error and pay an excise tax on that program rather than having the whole hospital’s status revoked.

The requirements were included in the health-care law as consumer protections, according to McMahon.

“That is why the Affordable Care Act (ACA) included additional consumer protection requirements for charitable hospitals, so that patients are protected from abusive collections practices and have access to information about financial assistance at all tax-exempt hospitals,” McMahon wrote.

Over half of all hospitals are nonprofits, representing a significant pool of money that’s exempt from state and federal tax authorities. Charitable hospitals have been criticized for years on the grounds that some don’t spend enough on free care for patients who qualify for financial assistance.

A 2013 study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that on average, nonprofit hospitals spent 7.5 percent of their operating expenses on charity care and community benefit, according to The New York Times.

LTC8K6

Jan 3 2015, 12:26 AM

How come there is an "uninsured" category?

• 
  
• "Many patients using the hospital's emergency room, which has experienced a 14% jump in outpatient visits in the first six months of 2014"
  

• 
  
• "Data hospitals report to the state show that as insurance coverage was extended to hundreds of thousands of residents, ER visits for ailments not serious enough to require an admission grew 3.9% in the county in the first half of 2014, compared with the same period the previous year. The growth is in line with annual increases of 3% to 5% in the three years prior to the federal healthcare overhaul.
  
  Despite little rise in overall emergency room use, the analysis found some significant changes in the distribution of those outpatient ER visits.
  
  The county's three large public hospitals, which historically have cared for many uninsured patients, recorded a 9% drop in such cases. At the same time, several private hospitals reported double-digit percentage increases in outpatient visits, the analysis found.
  
  What the uneven and changing usage patterns mean — and whether they signal the beginning of a long-term rearrangement of how patients will seek treatment — is not yet clear."

Quote:

 

http://dailycaller.com/2015/01/02/fuzzy-obamacare-subsidies-could-leave-half-of-obamacare-customers-owing-the-irs/print/

Fuzzy Obamacare Subsidies Could Leave Half Of Obamacare Customers Owing The IRS
Posted By Sarah Hurtubise

Up to half of the 6.8 million Americans who received premium subsidies in 2014 could end up owing the federal government money because of it this tax season, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Either my math is incorrect or I missed something. We've seen the head count go from 8 million (Barry) to 7.3 million (HHS later) to 6.9 million (after deducting 400,000 dental plans). I'm not sure where they got the 6.8 million from. Doesn't matter really, as I do not trust any of the numbers yet. The fuzzy math has never reported a set number for the no-pays.

According to an analysis by top tax firm H&R Block, as many as half of the customers who got premium subsidies may end up owing the federal government money after being overpaid throughout the year.

The problem is that customers have to estimate their income for the upcoming year when applying for Obamacare subsidies — and any mistakes or changes could mean that the IRS actually overpays them.

“The ACA is going to result in more confusion for existing clients and many taxpayers may well be very disappointed by getting less money and possibly even owing money,” Charles McCabe, president of Peoples Income Tax and the Income Tax School, told WSJ. “The whole implementation of Obamacare will be frustrating for tax preparers.”

On the upside, however, the mass confusion at the IRS and amongst tax preparers could leave the agency without adequate resources to fully enforce the individual mandate. And because the White House is behind on approving paperwork for the IRS’ implementation already, according to a report last month from the American Action Forum, the tax on the uninsured is likely to be only lightly enforced this year. (RELATED: White House Still Dodging IRS On Individual Mandate Paperwork)

The uninsured will get even more of a break during this tax season because the Obama administration is taking tax filers at their word about whether they actually had health insurance. The IRS has said it won’t reject tax returns if customers don’t answer questions about health insurance and will accept tax filers’ calculation for the penalty they owe the government if they admit they went without health coverage.

This tax season, customers will owe $95 or 1 percent of household income. Those totals can get fairly pricey — WSJ calculated that a single adult earning $60,000 a year could owe almost $500 for the tax, while a family with two adults and two children that makes $250,000 would owe $2,297. And the tax for going uninsured in 2015 climbs to $325 or 2 percent of income.

While tax preparers will be hard put-upon to cover customers’ bases with a load of new requirements this season, they’re also likely to see their bottom lines grow. As filing taxes grows more complicated for the average American, and especially those 6.8 million Obamacare customers, more people may choose to turn to a tax preparation service rather than attempting to figure out the forms on their own.

Industry experts may be calling 2014 the worst tax season yet, but 2015 is already set to grow even more complicated. This year, the employer mandate begins to take effect. Employers will have to report to the IRS who has health insurance through their job and who doesn’t, beginning in 2014, after the Obama administration delayed the reporting requirements in July 2013 due to the business community’s outcry.

The reporting requirements will likely make the IRS’ job more difficult and they’ll have to check tax filers’ reported health insurance status with employer records, giving the agency a way to charge customers more strictly for the individual mandate tax.

Quote:

 

http://www.cato.org/blog/nine-questions-house-vote-tweak-obamacares-employer-mandate

Nine TEN! Questions on the House Vote to Tweak ObamaCare’s Employer Mandate
By Michael Cannon

Tomorrow, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives will vote on a measure that would alter the definition of full-time work, for purposes of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate, from 30 hours per week to 40 hours per week. The measure is likely to pass. The House approved a similar measure last Congress, but it never went anywhere in the Senate, which was then under Democratic control. Now that Republicans have a majority in the Senate, there’s a chance the measure could clear both chambers of Congress. The president threatens a veto. Yuval Levin writes this change “seems likely to be worse than doing nothing.”

I have a few questions about this supposed threat to ObamaCare:

• 
  
• 1.This legislation would reduce the burden of ObamaCare’s employer mandatem but it would also increase government spending by making more workers eligible for health-insurance subsidies through ObamaCare’s Exchanges. How is that a policy victory?
  [Look the other way stupid voters, the ol' GOP will fix it!]
  
  
• 2.The legislation would therefore shift part of ObamaCare’s cost from an organized and influential interest group (employers) to a disorganized and less-influential interest group (taxpayers). How is that strategically smart?
  
  
• 3.The legislation would make ObamaCare more tolerable for an organized and influential interest group (again, employers), thereby reducing their incentive to lobby for full repeal. How is that strategically smart?
  
  
• 4.House Republicans say they are committed to repealing ObamaCare entirely. If so, why is this bill, rather than a full-repeal bill, the first item on their agenda?
  
  
• 5.House Republicans say this bill will show they can govern. But they also acknowledge the president will veto it. How is that governing?
  [...and if Barry signs it?????]
  
  
• 6.This legislation would merely lessen the burden of the employer mandate, and only for some employers. By June, however, the Supreme Court could completely invalidate employer-mandate penalties for all employers across 36 states. (See King v. Burwell.) How is this legislation a wise use of Congress’ time, when a Supreme Court ruling could go much farther in just a few months?
  
  
• 7.A King ruling could also invalidate Exchange subsidies in 36 states, thereby exposing millions of Americans to the full cost of ObamaCare’s hidden taxes. That would give Congress more leverage than ever before to reopen and repeal the law. With this legislation, House Republicans are playing small ball with no leverage. How is that strategically smart?
  
  
• 8.If enacted, this legislation would actually reduce the leverage a King ruling would give Congress to reopen and repeal ObamaCare. How is that strategically smart?
  
  
• 9.The president has said he would veto this legislation. Given the above, should Republicans believe him?
  [Insert pic of Barry & crew laughing at stupid voters!]
  
  

Note that many of these questions also apply to repeal of the employer mandate before a King ruling, and sometimes after.

Update: I forgot a question. (Ten questions!)

• 
  
• 10. This legislation would repeal a perverse incentive for employers to cut workers’ hours from just above to below 30 hours per week. It would replace that perverse incentive with a perverse incentive to cut the hours of other workers from just above to below 40 hours per week. Those other workers would complain that Republicans just made ObamaCare worse for them. How is that a political win, or strategically smart?