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New rule gives wiggle room to big firms Vol. 123, No. 38 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
WASHINGTON (AP) — Big retail stores, hotels, restaurants and other firms with lots of low-wage and parttime workers are among the main beneficiaries of the Obama administration’s latest tweak to health care rules. Companies with 100 or more workers will be able to avoid the biggest of two potential employer penalties in the Affordable Care Act by offering coverage to 70 percent of their fulltimers. That target is consider-
ably easier to hit than the administration’s previous requirement of 95 percent, but the wiggle room is only good for next year. “It will be very helpful to employers,” said Bill O’Malley, a tax expert with McGladrey, a consulting firm focused on mediumsize businesses. “This gives them a bit of a transition period to begin expanding coverage on a gradual basis. There would be some cost savings to employers who otherwise were nowhere near meeting the
February 12, 2014
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standard for 2015.” It means that big companies, not only mediumsized fir ms, can benefit from the new employer coverage rules that the Treasury Department announced Monday. Under those rules, companies with 50 to 99 workers were given an extra year, until 2016, to comply with the health care law’s requirement to offer coverage. “I think it’s pretty significant because the vast majority of the workforce is in large firms,” said Larry
Levitt, a health insurance expert with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. “It affects a much bigger swath of the economy.” President Barack Obama’s health care law requires companies with 50 or more employees working 30 or more hours a week to offer them suitable coverage or pay fines. The so-called employer mandate was written into the law as a guardrail to discourage employers from shifting workers into taxpayer-subsidized coverage.
How sweet!
Mark Wilson Photo
CASA kids Angelita Luevano, left, and Sarah Nichols sort through Valentine gifts that were delivered by Jessie Sjue of Eastern New Mexico University-Roswell, right, at the CASA office, Tuesday. Student Services at ENMU-R partnered with Chaves County CASA to create 65 treat bags filled with candy, valentines and small toys for children and their families.
WEDNESDAY
Small businesses with fewer than 50 workers are exempt. And more than 90 percent of the larger firms already offer health care. But even if it directly impacts a relatively small share of companies, the mandate still represents a major new gover nment requirement on businesses. At a time when the economy remains weak, implementation has been fraught with political overtones. The requirement was originally supposed to take ef fect in 2014, but last
summer the White House delayed it for a year. Then came this week’s additional delay for medium-size companies.
Treasury officials say the lower coverage standard for bigger companies should help employers struggling with the health care law’s definition of a full-time worker as someone who averages 30 hours a week. Many firms have traditionally set a 35-hour week as the threshold for offering health care benefits.
AG’s office: Gov. did not break law with copter flight
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — Gov. Susana Martinez didn’t break the law when she took a ride on a State Police helicopter to avoid missing a commercial flight to attend political fundraisers in Texas in 2011, a top official in the New Mexico attorney general’s office has concluded. However, general counsel David Pederson says it would seem “highly appropriate” for Martinez, her campaign or the Republican Governors Association to reimburse the state the $800 that the flight cost taxpayers because it was “a convenience afforded her that would not be available to the average citizen or public official, even if no law was broken.” Martinez, who criticized her Democratic predecessor’s use of government aircraft and called a state jet the “ultimate symbol of waste and excess,” said she has no intention of paying
back the expense. Her office has said the helicopter flight was proper because Martinez stayed at a Board of Finance meeting that ran late, so State Police used the helicopter to get her to the Albuquerque airport on time for a flight to an RGA meeting in Houston.
Pederson said it “appears that a colorable reason for use of state transportation has been made by the governor.” He concluded that while the helicopter did provide a personal or political benefit for Martinez, there was a “plausible official purpose” for using it.
A liberal advocacy group, ProgressNow New Mexico, had asked Democratic Attor ney General Gary King, who is running for governor next year against Martinez, to deter mine whether she violated state ethics laws.
2 arrested, charged Man convicted of running driver’s license ring with racketeering
Roswell Police arrested a man and a woman in connection with racketeering charges on Feb. 6, according to a Roswell Police Department news release. Calvin Reese, 23, and Myranda Salayandia, 19, were arrested after a Roswell Police Department of ficer pulled them over during a traffic stop. Reese was arrested on a charge of racketeering. Salayandia was arrested on charges of racketeering, identity theft, forgery, and fraud. Police say Reese and Salayandia engaged in a
patter n of racketeering, including numerous burglaries, larcenies, fraud, fraudulent documents, forgeries, and identity theft, beginning Jan. 3, through Feb. 6.
SANTA FE (AP) — A proposal to let New Mexico voters decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana stalled in a legislative committee on Tuesday and is likely dead for the year.
na. The pr oposal likely would have faced difficulty in the Democratic-controlled Legislature, particularly because of opposition from rural and conservative lawmakers. Sen. Gerald Ortiz y Pino, an Albuquerque Democrat who sponsored the measur e, said he saw little chance of the issue being r evived this session because it’s unlikely any committee members would change their votes before the Legislature adjourns late next week. He vowed to renew the
Through the course of the investigation, 41 victims have been identified, including six banks. After the arrest, officers took Reese and Salayandia to the Chaves County Detention Center. Bond was set at $25,000.
Police say additional charges for Reese and Salayandia are pending.
LAS CRUCES (AP) — A federal jury in Las Cruces convicted a Chinese national Tuesday of 64 felonies for running a ring that helped immigrants illegally obtain New Mexico driver’s licenses. After about three hours of deliberations, the jury found Hai Gan, 56, of The Colony, Texas, guilty on 51 counts of fraud and other charges. He faces a sentence of hundreds of years in prison, as well as the forfeiture of four homes he owns in New Mexico and Texas. U.S. District Judge Robert Brack said it was the first time he has ever seen a “verdict form with 64 counts and there is a notation of guilty on each of the blocks opposite of counts one through 64.” Prosecutor Michael Pleters said the verdict sends a message that people “can’t come to New Mexico
and game the system.” Defense attorney Francisco Mario Ortiz said he was unable to “overcome the insurmountable evidence.” Gan is one of several people who have been prosecuted in recent years for running such rings in New Mexico, which is one of just a few states that let residents get driver’s license regardless of their immigration status. Lawmakers have repeatedly rejected attempts by Gov. Susana Martinez to change that law. Her latest effort stalled last weekend on a tied vote in a legislative committee. Prosecutors say Gan advertised in Chinese language papers, then charged people upward of $3,000 each so they could list the addresses of his houses on their license applications. Assistant U.S. Attorney Randy
Marijuana legalization stalls in NM Senate panel The Senate Rules Committee deadlocked 5-5 on whether to send the constitutional amendment to another committee for consideration. The proposal would have made it legal for adults 21 and over to possess and use marijuana. It would have been left to the Legislature to later establish a system for regulating and taxing marijua-
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pr oposal in next year’s Legislature. “We’ll just keep trying until it happens. I think it’s inevitable,” said Ortiz y Pino. Colorado and Washington state have legalized marijuana. Pot stor es opened in Colorado last month, and sales ar e expected to start in Washington later this year. Four Republicans on the committee opposed the measure and were joined by Democratic Sen. Clemente Sanchez of Grants. Five Democratic senators supported the
• VINA LENORE BRISCOE • PAUL STEPHEN BODOCSI • LUCILLA LUCERO ORTEGA
Castellano characterized the case as one that has “too much evidence.” He said the 56-year-old was driven purely by a love of money and that his actions prove that he knew what he was doing was illegal.
Castellano said Gan disguised his New Mexico properties to look like apartments, he advised people against talking to authorities, and he rarely accompanied his clients to the Department of Motor Vehicles to avoid being recognized. Ortiz said his client believed he was acting lawfully when he advertised his services to immigrants around the country. And he said he never asked if the customers were in the country legally or not. He also pointed out that many spoke good English, were well-dressed and welleducated.
measure.
Had the Senate and House approved the proposal, it would have gone straight to voters to decide in the November general election. A constitutional amendment, unlike a bill that changes state law, doesn’t go to the governor to be signed or vetoed. Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, a former prosecutor, opposes legalizing marijuana.
Several opponents objected to using the state constitution to decide the marijuana issue.
In this Dec. 5, 2013, file photo, marijuana matures at the Medicine Man dispensary and grow operation in northeast Denver.
• HEIDI WILLIAMS BOWEN
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