EDITORIAL: Unintended consequences: Obamacare hits home
Key portions of the Affordable Care Act, including the employer mandate, went into effect at the beginning of the spring semester, and it’s lacking some important infrastructure for success – particularly for students.
Under Obamacare, employers are now required to offer health insurance to part-time employees who work more than 30 hours per week.
Central Michigan University is one of those employers.
In response, the university was left with two options: limit work hours to below the federally-mandated ceiling, or offer health insurance packages to more employees.
With 3,845 students, 272 temporary staff, 94 fixed-term faculty and more than 500 graduate assistants and global campus faculty working on campus, 5,300 CMU employees have had their work hours restricted to avoid health insurance costs that the university is not prepared to take on.
As of Jan. 1, part-time employees at CMU were capped at 50 hours per 2-week pay period, or 25 hours per week in a preliminary response to the new legislation.
Although the limit is a step below the 30-hour Obamacare mandate, some breathing room shows active preparation – especially when, as of 2015, violation of the employer mandate could mean steep financial penalties for the university.
Obamacare has good intentions, but it also has some unintended consequences – and part-time employed college students are now taking a heavy blow.
Students who relied on working on-campus for more than 25 hours a week are now receiving decreased hours, forcing them off campus for continued employment.
At a time when national unemployment is at 7.3 percent and state unemployment rests at 9 percent, these limitations are an unnecessary inconvenience.
Students should not be grouped into the overall workforce – especially when one job on campus is considered the same as another, completely unrelated position within the university. For example, holding a job at a residential restaurant will drain from the same hour pool as working in the office of information technology.
At Central Michigan Life, this issue has been particularly troubling. Our staff receives salary pay per issue or on a per-contribution basis – reducing this to a time schedule is nearly impossible, but now it must be done to keep aligned with federal mandates.
Graduate assistants are feeling the impact as well.
“(The GSU) does not believe the policy is realistic,” said Ben Fortin, Graduate Student Union vice president. “Many GAs, particularly those who are instructors of record, cannot realistically comply with 25 hours.”
In order to comply with the federal mandate, graduate assistants, adjunct and fixed-term faculty will now either have to spend a reduced amount of time on their work, or be forced to complete their duties off the books.
With less time for grading coursework, meeting with students and providing valuable feedback between teaching courses, the new legislation is an obstacle for quality education.
Some consequences of new legislation, especially one as sizeable as the Affordable Care Act, are not realized until implementation – and that’s exactly what is happening here on campus.
An exemption is the next step for solving this problem.
Although no one believes Obamacare was designed to hurt college students or hinder the educational experience, labeling students under the banner of the general workforce is a real issue that needs to be addressed.
