Keystone XL Pipeline Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, 2 weeks ago Senator Joe Donnelly and I
reintroduced bipartisan legislation that we call the Forty Hours is
Full Time Act. It would correct a serious flaw in the Affordable Care
Act that threatens the hours and pay of part-time workers all across
America. Our bill would change the definition of ``full-time'' work
under ObamaCare from 30 hours a week to the standard 40 hours a week, a
commonsense threshold that has always been the standard for full-time
work. In fact, under the Fair Labor Standards Act, it is 40 hours a
week that defines ``full time,'' after which workers are eligible in
many cases for overtime.

Information I received from the Home Care & Hospice Alliance of Maine
demonstrates that this illogical definition of ``full-time'' work could
result in hundreds of home health care workers losing their jobs and
1,000 seniors losing access to home care services in the State of Maine
alone.

The impact would be just as severe outside of Maine, a point driven
home by a letter I recently received from the National Association for
Home Care & Hospice, an organization that represents caregivers who
provide in-home health and hospice services to chronically ill,
disabled, and dying Americans. The association just conducted a survey
of its members that reveals the devastating impact this definition will
have on home care and hospice services around the country if Congress
does not act to change it. Let me share with my colleagues just a few
of the key findings of this survey.

Nationally, four out of five home care and hospice providers are
unable to provide health benefits to their employees because they rely
on government programs such as Medicaid, with its low reimbursement
levels, and because they provide services to people with limited
incomes.

So it is not as if they can simply boost their rates. In many cases
their rates are set by Medicaid and at a very low level. In other cases
they are serving people with limited incomes who simply cannot afford
more expensive home care.

Another finding: Three out of four providers will have to cut the
hours of their caregivers. That means those caregivers who are engaged
in such compassionate and skilled work will have smaller paychecks on
which to live.

Nine out of ten providers expect patients to lose access to home care
in their communities.

One in five providers of home care and hospice services will actually
have to close their doors. Think of the impact closing one in five home
care and hospice agencies would have on America's seniors and our
disabled citizens. In my view, taking action to spare this vulnerable
population would, by itself, justify restoring the threshold for full-
time work to the standard 40 hours a week.

But this is not the only reason to do so. Reforming the law would
also help protect the caregivers who provide the services as well as
their patients, and ironically it would protect taxpayers as well. Data
from Maine's Medicaid Program shows that home care services are
extremely cost-effective compared to alternatives. If access to these
services is restricted because of the application of the 30-hour rule,
those in need of these services will be forced into costlier forms of
care paid for by Medicaid and Medicare, such as hospitals and nursing
homes, driving up both Federal and State costs. In addition, the
patients now served by home health care providers would no longer be
able to receive vital care in the comfort, privacy, and security of
their own homes.

So whether we look at it from the perspective of the patients served
or the caregivers employed or the taxpayers who pay for the Medicare
and Medicaid Programs, this hurts all three groups. Of course, there is
obviously a lot of overlap among those groups.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record, immediately
following my remarks, an excellent letter from the National Association
for Home Care & Hospice which elaborates on the problems created by
this definition under ObamaCare.

Of course, the justification for using the standard definition of
full-time work extends far beyond the field of home care services to
the full breadth of our economy. Raising the threshold for full-time
work to 40 hours a week is necessary not only to protect the paychecks
of workers employed by private sector businesses, such as restaurants
and hotel staff, but also to protect those who work in the public
sector, such as substitute teachers, ed techs, and schoolbus drivers,
to name just a few.

The 30-hour rule will not only harm school staff who want and need
more work, but it will also hurt our students by causing unnecessary
disruption in the classroom. It does not make sense to have to limit
substitute teachers to 29 hours a week because of the definition of
``full-time'' work under ObamaCare. That means there will be a
revolving door of substitutes in our classrooms and lower paychecks
once again for those substitute teachers.

I have also heard of a school district that has been forced to cut
field trips and transportation to athletic events and employees who
used to work more than 30 hours total in two jobs who have been forced
to give up one of their jobs, thus hurting their financial security.

Several Maine municipalities have described to me the impact on their
workers, particularly volunteer and oncall firefighters, emergency
medical technicians, and employees of the parks and recreation and
public works departments.

Although the IRS adopted regulations last year in an attempt to
exclude volunteer firefighters from the calculation of the employer
mandate, these regulations do not give our towns and cities the level
of protection provided by the Forty Hours is Full Time Act.

In most Maine communities, the fire department is staffed by
volunteers and oncall firefighters who typically have health care
coverage through their regular day jobs. In fact, in Maine, oncall
firefighters for our smaller communities often serve as full-time
firefighters--receiving full health care benefits--in a neighboring
community. They help the smaller towns by serving as on-call
firefighters. Unfortunately, under ObamaCare it doesn't matter that
these on-call firefighters already have health care coverage; the towns
that employ them for more than 30 hours a week may still face the
$2,000 penalty per on-call firefighter for doing so. This makes no
sense whatsoever.

For example, one town in southern Maine has told me that the 30-hour
rule will require it to offer health care coverage to more than a dozen
volunteer and on-call firefighters who do not qualify for coverage from
the town today. The cost of doing so will drive up that town's health
care budget by 20 percent at a time when its budget is already
stretched to the breaking point.

Another Maine community has employees who work part time but year-
round performing various tasks, including plowing and salting the roads
in the winter. These employees typically work 30 to 34 hours a week,
and they do not qualify for health benefits under the town's plan.
Since the town cannot afford to add them to its health care plan, it
simply will have no choice but to cut their hours back to 29 hours a
week. The town doesn't want to do that. The workers don't want to have
their hours cut. As anyone who has lived in Maine or any Northern State
can tell you, snowstorms do not keep to a schedule. Mother Nature seems
not to have heard about the 30-hour workweek under ObamaCare. So it
will be a challenge for this town to keep its roads safe, clear, and
passable in the winter while making sure its part-time employees don't
exceed 29 hours a week. So, once again, what is the result? Reduced
hours, a smaller paycheck for part-time workers, and more costs for the
town and more disruption in the services it provides.

Winters are long in Maine and summers are short. Towns have to manage
their workers' schedules to match the season, but the 30-hour rule will
make it very difficult for them to do so.

For example, one town in central Maine told me that a number of its
employees work full time in its parks and recreations department in the
summer, and then they work part time in the winter. Because of the 30-
hour rule, however, this town won't be able to stagger the schedules of
these employees in the winter the way it used to and will have to lay
them off instead and then, adding insult to injury, pay them
unemployment during the layoff period. So here we have a case where the
law is actually going to force the town to lay off part-time employees
who want to work. This makes no sense.

Part-time workers who are hired to help with snow removal are often
shifted to other departments in the spring and summer months to assist
full-time employees or to take their place when they are on vacation.
But the 30-hour rule once again takes away the flexibility towns need
to do this.

For example, one town in northern Maine has told me that the part-
time workers it has relied upon to help cover vacation time for its
firefighters in the summer months will have to be cut back to 29 hours
a week because the town cannot afford to pay the $2,000 penalty it will
face for each employee if they work their usual hours. Raising the
threshold for full-time work to 40 hours a week would restore the
flexibility this town needs to manage its workforce, give these part-
time workers more hours and the bigger paychecks they need, and help
full-time firefighters get a break after a long, tough winter.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to proceed
for 1 more minute.

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Ms. COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. President.

Today I have described just some of the damage the 30-hour rule is
doing to municipal employees, to providers of home health care and
hospice services, and to those who work in our school systems.
Nationwide, 100 school systems have had to scale back the hours of
their workers already. Employees in all industries--for-profit and non-
profit, private sector and public sector--are similarly affected.

Regardless of the varying views of Senators in this Chamber on the
Affordable Care Act, surely we ought to be able to agree to fix this
problem in the law that is hurting workers' paychecks and creating
chaos for employers. Senator Donnelly has introduced bipartisan
legislation with Senator Joe Manchin and Senator Lisa Murkowski that
would do just that. It is the Forty Hours is Full Time Act, and I urge
all of my colleagues to join us in supporting it.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

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