Democrats in Congress Are Increasingly Worried About Obamacare
Last week The New York Times noted that Democrats on Capitol Hill were increasingly concerned about the rollout of Obamacare. The Hill follows up with a report today noting that “anxious Democrats fear a botched implementation of ObamaCare could dash their hopes of controlling the House and Senate for President Obama’s last two years in office.”...

...If voters soured on Democrats because of implementation troubles, it probably wouldn’t be the first time the health law cost Democrats politically. Last year, a team of political scientists found that voting for the law may have cost Democrats control of the House in 2010. And public perception of the law isn’t any stronger right now: Just 35 percent of the public has a favorable opinion of the law, according to the most recent Kaiser Health Tracking poll.

Is Obamacare Encouraging Employers to Hire Fewer Full-Time Workers?
...The report contained worrisome signs that President Obama’s healthcare reform law is hurting full-time, high-wage employment.

While the American economy added 293,000 jobs last month, according to the separate household survey, the number of persons employed part time for economic reasons — “involuntary part-time workers” as the Labor Department calls them – increased by almost as much, to 278,000 to 7.9 million. These folks were working part time because a) their hours had been cut back or b) they were unable to find a full-time job. At the same time, the U-6 unemployment rate — a broader measure of joblessness that includes discouraged workers and part-timers who want a full-time gig – rose from 13.8% to 13.9%.

Let’s see, more part timers and fewer hours worked. Economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin says what we’re all thinking: “This is not good news as it reflects the reliance on part-time work. … the decline in hours and rise of part-time work is troubling in light of anecdotal reports of the impact of the Affordable Care Act.”...

Employers Slash Workers’ Hours To Avoid Obamacare Costs
...Consider the city of Long Beach. It is limiting most of its 1,600 part-time employees to fewer than 27 hours a week, on average. City officials say that without cutting payroll hours, new health benefits would cost up to $2 million more next year, and that extra expense would trigger layoffs and cutbacks in city services....