"Cities, counties, public schools and community colleges around the country have limited or reduced the work hours of part-time employees to avoid having to provide them with health insurance under the Affordable Care Act."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/21/us/public-sector-cuts-part-time-shifts-to-duck-insurance-law.html?_r=0
The employer mandate applies to the public as well as the private sector, and although it's been delayed until next year, "many public employers have already adopted policies, laws or regulations" to avoid its costliest effects.
That means they don't get the 30 hours, which is the threshold. "Among those whose hours have been restricted in recent months are police dispatchers, prison guards, substitute teachers, bus drivers, athletic coaches, school custodians, cafeteria workers and part-time professors."
Mark Benigni, schools superintendent of Meriden, Conn, asks "Are we supposed to lay off full-time teachers so that we can provide insurance coverage to part-time employees?" “If I had to cut five reading teachers to pay for benefits for substitute teachers, I’m not sure that would be best for our students.”
Mayor Dennis Hanwell of Medina, OH (suburb of Cleveland) tells the paper his city had to reduce the hours (and thus the pay) of office clerks, sanitation men, park inspectors and police dispatchers to 29 hours from 35. "Our choice was to cut the hours or give them health care, and we could not afford the latter."
William J. Lipkin, an adjunct professor of American history and political science at Union County College in Cranford, N.J., said: “The Affordable Care Act, rather than making health care affordable for adjunct faculty members, is making it more unaffordable. Colleges are not giving us access to health care, and our hours are being cut, which means our income is being cut. We are losing on both ends.”
(Of course that gets it backward: The law isn't being "used" to "reduce faculty workload"; rather, reductions in faculty workload are being used to avoid the most burdensome aspects of the law. It's true enough that wasn't ObamaCare's intent. That's why they call them unintended consequences. - bkh70041)
The American Federation of Teachers lists on its website three dozen public colleges and universities in 15 states that it says have restricted the work assignments of adjunct or part-time faculty members to avoid the cost of providing health insurance.
http://www.aft.org/issues/healthreform/highered/adjunct.cfm
Here's another prospective unintended consequence: "Raising the minimum wage could cost Illinois' cash-strapped universities millions of dollars in added wages for their student workforce."
http://herald-review.com/business/local/minimum-wage-talk-concerns-university-officials/article_28b87235-f024-5971-b016-703c64720e4f.html
So. Illinois Univ. estimates that a minimum-wage hike would cost it $3.2 million a year; Illinois State Univ., $1.6 million; and Eastern Illinois Univ., $940,000 "at a time when the General Assembly may be considering further cuts in aid to higher education." Officials at both Illinois State and Eastern Illinois say the wage hike would force them to reduce the number of student workers, depriving those students of both work experience and income.
The "sob stories" are not false. Krugman's lying.
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