Rock Springs, Gillette School Districts forced to consider cutting back employee hours due to Obamacare mandates.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) highlighted news articles from Rock Springs and Gillette, Wyoming that outline how local school districts are considering cutting back employee hours and paychecks due to the President’s health care law.  He also discussed how the law forces Americans to give their private financial information to a wide range of federal agencies. 

Click here to watch his remarks.

Excerpts of his remarks:

“We’ve heard a lot of talk this week about the big push by President Obama and his allies to promote the health care law.

“Well, we’re less than 100 days out from the implementation of that law.

“People in Wyoming are already feeling the effects of the Democrats’ health care law.

“Now, the law says that employers with more than 50 full-time employees have to provide expensive one-size-fits-all health insurance.

“So employers all across the country are cutting full-time workers back to part-time status—cutting their shifts to less than 30 hours a week.

“That’s the cutoff point to be considered a full-time worker under the Democrats’ health care law.

“Well, that’s why we’re starting to get stories like the one from the ‘Rocket Miner’ newspaper in Rock Springs, Wyoming that came out yesterday.

“The headline is ‘School district looks at coverage, worker options’ under the headline of ‘health care reform.’

“Here’s what the article says: ‘More than 500 employees working for Sweetwater County School District No. 1 could see a reduction in their paychecks for the upcoming school year. The district may reduce hours for part-time employees to exempt it from covering them on its insurance plan under President Barack Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.’

“Right here, the ‘Rocket Miner’, Rock Springs, Wyoming, Tuesday, June 25th.

“Well, the article goes on to explain that the school district has more than 500 employees who are working between 30 and 34 hours a week.

“Those are the people that the health care law is threatening the most.

“The article goes on to say that these workers ‘are likely to see their hours decreased by up to five hours.’

“It’s the people at 34 hours, getting them down to 29.

“It quotes the school board chairman saying that the huge chunk of money it would need to provide Washington-approved insurance for everyone would have to come out of classrooms and other essentials.

“He says, ‘We are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars.’

“Well maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars isn’t very impressive an amount to Washington Democrats—but for a small school district in Wyoming, that’s a big hit to their budget—and it’s a lot of pain that the law is inflicting on those teachers, and on those students.

“So for the employees who are going to see their hours cut from 35 hours to fewer than 30, the Democrats’ health care law is hitting their paychecks and hitting it hard.

“Well, that was yesterday.  Today, the ‘Gillette News Record,’ Kathy Brown writes in the ‘Gillette News Record’ today: ‘School Trustees Consider Changes With Obamacare.’ 

“Here’s what they say in Campbell County: ‘About 200 part time positions could be affected.’ It goes on, it says, ‘It does mean the district must track the hours of employees much more closely and consider what to do with 320 substitute teachers, 27 substitute bus drivers, 23 coaches, eight temporary and four summer-only employees.  Before the July 17th meeting, school officials will try to provide information to trustees on hours and possible costs.  This is a paperwork nightmare, says one of the trustees.  She wondered if the district would have to actually hire employees just to do the paperwork and the tracking.’

“There are nearly eight million people in this country who are working part-time because they can’t find full-time work. 

“These aren’t just numbers in a monthly unemployment report. These are people, people all across the country, in towns like Rock Springs Wyoming, Gillette, Wyoming who want to work, who want to provide for their families.

“But they are suffering from the bad economic recovery that’s been caused by the failed policies of Washington Democrats.

“Then they get a second hit, hit a second time with this terrible health care law, a law that cuts back their hours, and cuts their paychecks even more.

“I want to make one more point about the health care law. It’s a headline in this morning’s ‘Investor’s Business Daily.’

“It says: ‘Privacy Falls Victim to Obamacare Hub.’

“The hub that they’re talking about is the database of information about people that was created by the health care law.

“It was created so that Washington could figure out who has health insurance, and who might qualify for subsidies under the law.

“With this data hub, Washington bureaucrats are going to have access to a huge amount of information, personal information about people all across the country.

“Here’s what the article says: ‘the ObamaCare data hub will interact with seven other federal agencies: Social Security Administration, the IRS, the Department of Homeland Security, the Veterans Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Defense and — believe it or not — the Peace Corps. Plus the Hub will plug into state Medicaid databases.’

“So what does the Hub want to include in all of this?

“Well, the article goes on to say that the hub ‘will store names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, taxpayer status, gender, ethnicity, email addresses, telephone numbers on the millions of people expected to apply for coverage at the ObamaCare exchanges.’

“Now, that’s just part of it.  They’re also going to have tax return information from the IRS, income information from the Social Security Administration, and financial information from other third-party sources.

“The article says that Washington ‘will also store data from businesses buying coverage through an exchange, including a list of qualified employees and their tax ID numbers,’ and you know what they’re going to ‘keep it all on file for 10 years.’

“Ten years.

“In addition,’ the article goes on and says, ‘the federal government can disclose this information,’ we’re talking about citizens, private information turned over to the government and the government can disclose this information without the consent of the individual to a wide range of people, including agency contractors, consultants, or grantees who need to have access to the records to help run ObamaCare.

“So all of this personal, private information, is collected in one place, held for 10 years, and made available to bureaucrats, to contractors, and to consultants. 

“This is just another terrible effect of the Democrats’ health care law. A law that the American people are just starting to learn about. And a law that many of those who voted for it didn’t even know what was in it.

“The more people learn, the more worried they become about how this law will affect their care, their jobs, their paychecks, and their privacy.

“When Democrats here in Washington pushed their health care law through Congress, they weren’t honest with the American people about any of this – any of these negative effects.

“The American people deserve better.”

###