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Question about health ins for part time and affordable care act
I retired early and I do not need or want health insurance. When we moved to another state I started substituting in a local school district. This year, the district has a new HR person and told everyone you can only substitute for 29.5 hrs. per week. Apparently, this was enacted when affordable care act was passed but no one adhered to it.
I am doing a long term subbing position and this has been a major problem. I can only sub for 3.5 days per week. The other day and a half they get whomever is available. This is a 3rd grade class. This is awful for the students. They do not have a consistent teacher. Additionally, I need to sign out for lunch to put me under the threshhold of 29.5 hrs. The reason being, I would have to be offered benefits. The school would need to offer me benefits, which I would have to partially pay for, but I do not need benefits. ALso it is my understanding I can't be covered by 2 health care benefits, so I definitely don't want them. My current benefits are free. I also cannot sign a wavier that I don't want benefits.
I was telling this to a nurse today. SHe works for a huge hospital and works as a substitute nurse. They called it per diem. It is her understanding because she is per diem they do not have to offer her benefits. She signed a waiver she didn't need the benefits. She has worked between 40 and 60 hours for the last 6 months and is not having the problems we are having as a substitute.
ANy HR people out there that can guide me. I have spoken to my Congressman and he states there is nothing that can be done. On Monday I will contact HR at the hospital I mentioned above to find out the loophole.
I also called the Dept of Education in my state. They had no clue this was a law.
So please explain a bit more, what is contract work? Did they play you a daily rate?
Thanks for the info.
It was actually grants for Title 1 schools so they were "grant positions" only good for as long as the money flowed. Sometimes it was just 1/2 school year and other times the full year.
I don’t think your new HR person is right. The reason I say she can’t be correct is otherwise having a long term sub during maternity leaves would be impossible and just about every school district nationwide does it.
From the Massachusetts Department of Education:
Quote:
Under the ACA, if an employer reasonably expects at the time of an employee’s hire that the employee will average at least 30 hours per week of employment, then that employee must be provided health coverage no later than the first day of the employee’s fourth full calendar month of employment.
Regulations issued pursuant to the ACA define a “seasonal employee” as one who is hired into a position for which the customary annual employment is six months or less. As the customary annual employment of the teaching position is longer than six months, the regulations make it clear that a substitute teacher is not considered a seasonal employee, regardless of how long he or she is hired to work.
The ACA recognizes that employers will not always know at the time of hiring how long an employment will last, or how many hours the employee will average. Therefore, the ACA allows employers to choose from two options for determining the eligibility of these employees: monthly measurement or the “look-back method.”
Under the monthly measurement method, the employer determines on a monthly basis whether an employee is eligible for coverage. As an employee may average 30 hours per week for one month, less than 30 for the next, and then 30 hours for a third, this measurement method is not practical for many employers.
Under the look-back method, the employer adopts a measurement period for determining whether employees average at least 30 hours per week. The measurement period is followed by a stability period (generally of the same length), during which an employee is eligible for coverage if he or she averaged 30 hours per week during the measurement period – or ineligible if he or she worked less – regardless of how many hours the employee actually works during the stability period.
Although the ACA permits employers to use a measurement period of shorter duration, many school districts use a 12-month measurement period that aligns with the employer’s health plan year. The weeks of the summer school vacation period must be excluded when calculating the average hours worked by substitute teachers. So a district using a 12-month measurement period with a 10-week summer break would calculate average hours for substitute teachers by dividing hours worked by 42 (rather than 52).
In other words, your time is measured monthly or yearly to determine whether the job fits under the ACA full-time criteria. In my old district part-time teachers could not work more than 1025 hours per year or more than 138 days.
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I don’t think your new HR person is right. The reason I say she can’t be correct is otherwise having a long term sub during maternity leaves would be impossible and just about every school district nationwide does it.
From the Massachusetts Department of Education:
In other words, your time is measured monthly or yearly to determine whether the job fits under the ACA full-time criteria. In my old district part-time teachers could not work more than 1025 hours per year or more than 138 days.
Very interesting. I totally agree with you. Right now I am subbing for someone who is deployed witht he military. They were suppose to return mid-October, but now it looks more like Christmas. After Christmas break I have a 2 maternity leaves scheduled til the end of the year.
I contacted my Congressman- he told me the school was correct. The Dept of Ed told me it was up to the district. (LOL)
When you were offered benefits, (maybe that was another post), was the district paying part of the cost or were you responsible for the entire cost? If they offered me benefits or any other sub, and didn't contribute to the cost, this whole deal is a mute point.
The district has 25,000 students. I'm not sure where to go with your info, but I will pass it on to someone. Thanks!
Thanks to those that have responded. You state maternity leaves would be impossible. They are impossible. Right now, it's not a maternity leave, but it is a deployment. I'm only allowed to be there for 3.5 days. Someone else does the other 1.5 days and it's not always the same person. I can't believe the parents haven't complained. I know if it were my child's classroom, I would have a fit.
When Obama Care was first introduced,I read many places start cutting back hours of their employees-
-Mcd workers will work 20 hours at McDonald and 20 hours at Burger King.
-college professors will teach 2 courses at one collage and 2 at another college,altho running back and forth run up his gas bills and his car
Could you find 2 schools and work part time in each?
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