The Republicans have changed their tactic in opposing Obamacare. After trying some 50 times in the last Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act, they have finally realized that will just not happen -- all it does is makes then look foolish (like Don Quixote fighting windmills). They have decided instead to kill Obamacare at bit at a time. They want to keep chipping away at it until there is nothing left.
And the GOP House wasted no time in passing the first cut to Obamacare. The health care reform mandated that large businesses must provide employees that work at least 30 hours a week with health insurance. The limit was set at 30 hours so an employer couldn't cut a full-time employee back to 39 hours to avoid providing insurance (which would allow them to keep a full-time worker without giving them the insurance benefit).
The House Republicans passed a bill raising the limit to 40 hours. They claimed they did it to protect workers from having their hours cut, but that is just another GOP lie. Very few (if any) employers had cut worker hours down to 29 hours to avoid providing insurance, because that would just cause more problems for them. What the Republicans did was to allow employers to avoid providing insurance (because Republicans represent employers -- not workers).
And a majority of Americans know that. Only 40% support the GOP move to raise the limit to 40 hours, while a majority of 53% think the limit should stay at 30 hours. Once again, the Republicans have acted against the wishes of the American public -- something that's becoming a habit for them.
The chart above is from a new ABC News / Washington Post Poll taken between January 12th and 15th of a random national sample of 1,003 adults, with a margin of error of 3.5 points.
