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I thank the gentlelady for yielding the time.
Madam Speaker, helping those without health insurance to get coverage certainly is a very noble goal, but the method that was used to achieve it under ObamaCare has just done so much more harm than good. And a very vivid example of this is a provision that you are talking about today that requires employers to provide health insurance for any employee that works 30 hours or more a week. Their thinking must have been that more
part-time workers would receive employer-sponsored care and that employers would not change their behavior and, simply, they would absorb these new costs.
Well, I guess when you think like the government, maybe you would think that you are unconcerned about costs and you are unconcerned about balancing your books, and so that thinking sort of makes sense. But in the real world, it just does not work. Employers need to live in the real world. They are in business to make money, and they have to balance their books. And these very onerous provisions of ObamaCare make it very, very difficult for them to continue with business as usual, to comply with the law and to stay in business. So employers have been forced to cut workers' hours.
We also need to look for a moment, Madam Speaker, at those who have been most negatively impacted by ObamaCare and this particular provision of it. According to a study done by the Hoover Institution, the 30-hour rule puts 2.6 million workers with a median income of under $30,000 a year at risk of losing their job or having their hours cut. And guess what? Eighty-nine percent of the impacted workers do not have a college degree, 59 percent are between the ages of 19 and 34, and 63 percent of these workers that are so negatively impacted are women, Madam Speaker.
So this rule impacts the most vulnerable in our economy who are just starting to make their way in the world or who are working hard to support their families. And do you know I didn't need a study to actually tell me that because I am hearing it directly each and every day from those whom I am so proud to serve.
I will just give you one example--a vivid example--of many, many that we got, especially women who have contacted my office. This is from a mother named Tracy in Macomb County, Michigan, who said:
My daughter who is a single mom and struggles to make ends meet has had her hours at work cut by over 50 hours a month so that her company doesn't have to provide her with health care. So she is now looking for a second job, which means less hours for her and less time, of course, that she is able to spend with her children.
Madam Speaker, being a single mom is tough--it is really tough, and what we do here in Washington shouldn't make it tougher. Being a small business owner and a job creator is tough. Again, what we do here in Washington shouldn't make it tougher. The 40-hour workweek has been the bedrock of our economy for decades, and workers and families have come to depend on it--that is, of course, until ObamaCare changed the rules.
It is time for us to correct this mistake and repeal this terrible provision.
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