Legislation Would Modify Definition of “Full-Time Employee” from 30 to 40 Hours in the PPACA

Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) recently introduced the “Forty Hours is Full Time Act of 2013” (S. 701). It would modify the definition of full-time employee (FTE) for purposes of the shared responsibility mandates in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).  Starting in 2014, the PPACA imposes a $2,000 employer penalty for each full-time employee – after the first 30 – where the business employs 50 or more full time equivalent employees, does not offer health insurance to all employees, and at least one of the employees qualifies for a federal subsidy to purchase health insurance. The definition of “full-time employee” in the calculation of target employer’s penalty is based upon the total of the number of employees working at least 30 hours a week.

Boom Predicted For At-Home Care Industry

By Alan Farnham, ABC News

Aging Baby Boomers present golden opportunities for investors and job seekers alike, say entrepreneurs and labor experts.

Prospects for providers of in-home health care services look especially bright. Such in-home services can include everything from assistance with bathing and grooming, to help getting in and out of bed, to help with housekeeping, meal preparation and laundry.

Although some states, according to in home care-provider Synergy HomeCare, permit aides to administer medication and check vital signs at home, most do not. Ones that do permit it require that medical services be provided under the direction of a nurse or other healthcare practitioner.

By 2020, the ranks of home health and personal care aides will have swelled by more than 1.3 million—a 70 percent increase from 2010, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That compares with a growth rate of 14 percent for the U.S. job market at large.

Need for In-Home Care Projected to Soar

By Ana Veciana-Suarez, The Miami Herald

Every morning for the last seven years, Fanie Occeas has been preparing Prescola Beneby a hearty weekday breakfast — grits and sardines or sausage and eggs. Every morning, too, Occeas bathes the 87-year-old, tidies up her Arcola Lakes house and settles her in a wheelchair.

Their banter is easy, their movements together familiar and sure. “She’s like a daughter to me,” says Beneby.

Adds Occeas, “I’ve learned a lot from her.”

Occeas is a certified nursing assistant who looks in on Beneby and three other homebound seniors during her rounds for her employer, United HomeCare. Beneby is a mother of six, bedridden because of rheumatoid arthritis. The two are part of a trend that experts say will become very common as the nation’s population ages and more seniors choose to stay at home instead of moving to nursing facilities.

The number of people age 65 and older will double to 81 million in the next 30 years and the demand for nonmedical home-based help — for daily activities such as dressing, bathing and meal preparation — is expected to soar. In the past four years alone, there has been a 40 percent growth in U.S. senior care agencies, according to Caregiverlist.com, a company that connects seniors and professional caregivers with care options. More than 4,000 caregivers are hired monthly.

USA Today: Aging Population a Boon for Health Care Workers

By Hadley Malcolm, USA Today

As Baby Boomers age into retirement by the millions each year, their growing health care needs require more people to administer that care.

That makes fields such as nursing one of the fastest-growing occupations, and hospitals are hiring now to prepare for what’s to come.

Central Florida Health Alliance has 140 to 170 open positions a week, and almost 90% of them are for jobs that include registered nurses, pharmacists, physical therapists and pharmacy technicians, says Holly Kolozsvary, human resources director.

The two-hospital system based in Leesburg and The Villages is hiring for its peak season from January to April, when many retirees seek winter refuge in the Florida sun. But it’s also managing a trend that requires it to employ more people year-round: More retirees aren’t leaving at the end of spring, Kolozsvary says.

Florida: A Bellwether for Medicaid Expansion

By Erin N. Marcus, The Atlantic

He was a “frequent flyer” — a patient with multiple health problems who gets admitted to the hospital repeatedly. It was usually because he hadn’t taken his medicine correctly, if at all. When he left the hospital 10 days earlier, he told his physician that he wouldn’t have problems filling his prescriptions, because he had Medicaid. But when he arrived at his local drug store, it wasn’t so easy.

Opinion: Home Health Aides Deserve a Living Wage

By Dean Baker & Steven L. Dawson
Published in The Washington Post

As Congress gins up its attack on women’s health services, another issue that affects the welfare of women has been getting far less attention. Caregiving in America is a female occupation. Most family caregivers are women — and they constitute 90 percent of paid workers who provide home health services.

Many people do not realize that those who provide home care are not guaranteed the same right to a 40-hour week under the Fair Labor Standards Act as most other workers. Since 1974, home-care aides have been subject to the “companionship exemption,” which deemed “companions to the elderly and infirm” to be much like teenage babysitters: casual laborers who did not need to earn a living wage to support a family.

Sunny Outlook for Home Care Jobs in 2020

Health care and social assistance sector are the fastest growing sectors of employment, and will account for one-quarter of the new jobs created by 2020, according to U.S. Department of Labor employment projections. These jobs will total 5.6 million new jobs.