The employer mandate contained in the Affordable Care Act is a "disaster" for Americans and must be repealed, says healthcare policy expert Sally Pipes, president of the Pacific Research Institute.
"Staples just announced … their part-time employees would be reduced to 25 hours a week because under Obamacare the work week is 30 hours — because of the cost of Obamacare," Pipes told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
"Companies cannot pay these exorbitant wages to people under the employer mandate or be faced with fines, so therefore they're reducing their part-time labor force. Who does that hurt?
"It hurts the very people who are working in part-time jobs trying to build their reputation in the labor market and make a living for themselves and their families."
The mandate, which went into effect last month, requires most American businesses — those with at least 50 full-time employees — to offer government-approved health insurance to their workers. Those that don't must pay new federal taxes.
Pipes — author of
"The Pipes Plan: The Top Ten Ways to Dismantle Obamacare", published by Regnery — said the list of employers reducing hours is growing.
"Target, Home Depot, Walmart, they've all been doing the same thing because if you're in business, you can't afford to lose money. The government can run deficits and build up debt and we the taxpayers pay for it, but that's not the way it works in the private sector," she said.
"It's not leading to universal coverage or bending the cost of healthcare down … Even in schools in different states [are] having to cut the hours of the people that work as substitute teachers because they can't afford that mandate."
The Supreme Court is set to rule on whether the subsidies being paid to people on the federal healthcare exchanges — 34 states are part of that Healthcare.gov — are illegal because the law states they are only available to those enrolled in state-based exchanges.
"If the decision in June, late June comes down from the court saying those subsidies are illegal, employers are not going to have to pay those penalties and fines because the subsidies will be gone and we can return to a real workplace," Pipes said.
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