Employers share responses to Obamacare

Fourteen percent of employers have reduced work hours for part-time employees and another 6 percent plan to do so, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.

A survey released today said 72 percent of employers are staying the course so far with their current health care insurance practices, but the Affordable Care Act has influenced changes by others.

Obamacare requires employers to offer health care insurance to employees who regularly work 30 hours a week.

The survey also found that 9 out of 10 employers haven’t considered reducing the hours of full-time workers and haven’t considered cutting staff overall because of the coverage mandate.

Evren Esen, director of SHRM’s survey programs, said most employers have found that their coverage practices and levels already met or exceeded the ACA requirements.

The survey found that 54 percent of employers who offer health care coverage require their employees to work 30 hours a week to be eligible, up from 44 percent in 2014 and 39 percent in 2013.

Twenty-six percent of employers said they required employees to work more than 30 hours a week to be eligible for coverage.

Three out of five organizations said they made changes to their health plans in the last year, and three out of four said their health care coverage costs increased from 2014 to 2015.

This story was originally published March 24, 2015 at 9:43 AM with the headline "Employers share responses to Obamacare."