House Clears Legislation to Protect Emergency Responders from Obamacare Mandate

Press Release

Today the U.S. House passed legislation supported by Congressman Kevin Cramer to protect emergency service volunteers including firefighters from being subjected to the employer mandate contained in Obamacare. The Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act would ensure volunteer hours logged by these individuals would not count toward assessing noncompliance penalties on community fire departments and emergency medical service providers.

Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the employer mandate requires businesses with 50 or more employees to provide health insurance to all full-time employees, which is defined in the legislation as more than 30 hours a week. Because volunteer emergency responders often work more than 30 hours a week and receive nominal payment for their critical services, Obamacare as written would force a $2,000 noncompliance penalty on emergency departments for each volunteer beyond 30. The International Association of Fire Chiefs has warned over 780,000 volunteer firefighters could be subjected to this rule, which would have negative repercussions on emergency response activities across the country.

"I hope the President and the U.S. Senate join the House in protecting our community emergency departments and their dedicated volunteers. This misguided policy was clearly wrong from the start, and it needs to be fixed right away," said Cramer.

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