House to vote on ‘Hire More Heroes Act’ again in new Congress

The House will vote on legislation in the new Congress to incentivize businesses to hire more veterans by excluding them from the healthcare law’s employer mandate.

Under the bill, H.R. 3474, titled the “Hire More Heroes Act,” employers could exclude veterans who receive health coverage through the Department of Defense or the Department of Veterans Affairs from their lists of workers in order to avoid Obamacare’s employer mandate. Under the healthcare law’s requirement set to go into effect in 2015, employers with 50 or more full-time workers must provide health insurance.

{mosads}The House passed the measure in March by a vote of 406-1, but it stalled in the Senate. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said the bill would come up again when the 114th Congress convenes in January.

“Come January, at the beginning of the new Congress, the House will pass the Hire More Heroes Act again, sending it back to the Senate so that it can finally reach the President’s desk,” McCarthy wrote in a blog post.

McCarthy noted that the veterans who receive health coverage through the Department of Defense or Veterans Affairs through programs like TRICARE already satisfy the healthcare law’s requirement of having insurance, making it unnecessary that their new employers provide coverage for them.

“The Hire More Heroes Act, introduced by Representative Rodney Davis [R-Ill.], makes sure no employers are penalized for hiring a veteran and that no veteran is left jobless because of Obamacare’s employer mandate,” McCarthy wrote.