The Affordable Care Act

• Please watch streaming video of the July 22 board meeting. Skip to item 4.1, a discussion of the impact of “Obamacare” on the SOCCCD: "Evaluating the impacts of Affordable Care Act." Click on "video" in blue (for July 22). Scroll down for link to 4.1.

• Many Colleges Change Benefits Over New Health-Care Law, Survey Finds (Chronicle of Higher Education)

… How the health-care law applies to adjunct instructors has been a matter of debate—and a difficult question for colleges and the federal government to answer. Adjuncts are paid based on the number of courses they teach, not by the hour, which makes it hard to calculate how much time they work for each class and whether they cross the 30-hour threshold that would make them eligible for benefits.
. . .
     Instead of providing a formula for calculating adjuncts' hours, however, the IRS simply advised colleges to "use a reasonable method for crediting hours of service." It also stated that time spent working outside of the classroom, such as preparing for classes and grading assignments, should be considered.
     Many colleges have limited the number of weekly hours part-time employees can work to keep them below the level at which the colleges would be required to provide health insurance. But close to half—47 percent—of survey respondents said that they did not plan to alter their use of part-time faculty members because of the health-care law. Fifty-three percent of responding institutions said they did not plan to change their use of part-time staff members….

• IRS Says Colleges Must Be 'Reasonable' When Calculating Adjuncts' Work Hours (Chronicle of Higher Education)