Obama threatens veto of increase of hours in health care law

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House on Wednesday said President Barack Obama will veto legislation that would increase his health care law's definition of a full-time worker from 30 to 40 hours per week.<br /> <br /> Republicans argue the health law's 30-hour requirement is encouraging companies to cut workers' hours. The White House said in statement there is no evidence the law has caused a broad shift to part-time work.<br /> <br /> The House plans to debate the measure this week as one of its first orders of business in the new Congress.<br /> <br /> The White House said the bill would reduce the number of Americans with employer-based health insurance coverage and create incentives for employers to shift employees to part-time work. The White House also said the bill would increase the deficit by $45.7 billion over 10 years.<br /> <br /> In a similar analysis, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected that the legislation would mean 1 million fewer people receiving health coverage at work. Half or more of them would then turn to coverage from programs like Medicaid or from the health insurance exchanges, leaving a nearly 500,000 increase in the number of uninsured people.<br /> <br /> The budget office also estimated that the legislation would boost federal deficits by $53.2 billion over the next decade. That's in part because more people would be getting government-paid health coverage.<br /> <br /> Brendan Buck, spokesman for Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan, responded that Obama "is showing once again that protecting his law is a higher priority than protecting these workers' wages."