The GOP-led chamber voted 248-179 to change the healthcare law's definition of full-time work from 30 hours a week to 40 hours a week on Thursday, according to the Washington Post.
It was the House GOP's 52nd vote to change, repeal or otherwise uproot Obama's health law, according to the Post. Eighteen Democrats joined with all Republicans in approving the bill, named the Save American Workers Act of 2013.
The result would be that fewer workers would get employer-sponsored health coverage and hundreds of thousands more people would be uninsured, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the Post reported.
Republicans are arguing the change would restore the traditional definition of full-time work while providing needed relief to businesses that are struggling with increased costs from the health care law, according to the Post.
Businesses say they are being forced to cut worker hours, limit full-time jobs and drop health coverage because of the law, which requires businesses with 50 or more full-time workers to provide health coverage or pay penalties, the Post reported.
Democrats said the law's 30-hour definition for a full-time workweek was meant to make it harder for employers to avoid covering full-time workers by slightly reducing their hours, according to the Post. Changing the definition to 40 hours would make the requirement virtually meaningless because employers could simply skirt it by knocking full-time workers down to 39-and-a-half hours a week, they said.
"That's a great deal for the CEO of McDonalds," said Representative George Miller, a Democrat from California, the Post reported. "But it's a terrible deal for American workers."
The GOP got more grist in February from a Congressional Budget Office report saying that several million American workers would cut back their hours on the job or leave the workforce because of the health overhaul, in large part to keep their income low to stay eligible for federal health care subsidies or Medicaid, according to the Post.
Republicans said the bill advanced Thursday would repair that problem, but Democrats pointed out that it would mean 1 million fewer people with employer-based coverage, add to the rolls of the uninsured and increase budget deficits, according to Congress' nonpartisan budget scorekeepers, the Post reported.
