Temp Agencies See Opportunity In Health Law: Will Substitute Teachers Be Offered Coverage?

There are good arguments for exempting new, variable-hour workers from health-coverage obligations, she said: tracking who worked 30 hours during which weeks for health-plan eligibility would cause confusion for employers and insurers alike.

The upshot, however, is that most temporary help workers — nearly 3 million on any given day — won't have employer-sponsored medical coverage even if they're working more than 30 hours, she said. Nellie Bly investigating employment agencies

Illustration: University of Pennsylvania Library, from Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Jane Cochrane Seaman) ([1887]) "Miscellaneous Sketches: By Nellie Bly: Trying to Be a Servant: My Strange Experience at Two Employment Agencies "

Under the health law's mandate that everybody be insured, temp workers without insurance must pay a penalty or seek coverage in state-based marketplaces known as exchanges. Because of the lower wages typically paid by staffing agencies, temps will likely be eligible for tax credits or Medicaid.

Kelly CEO Carl Camden downplays the idea that employers will shed health coverage liabilities by hiring staffing companies. He sees clients' adjustment to the health act as "a modest opportunity" for his company.

"There is a portion of the staffing industry who think there will be a large amount of companies trying to avoid obligations under the ACA and trying to shift over to staffing firms," Camden said in an interview. "I don't see that as happening."

The bigger business may be helping companies navigate the law with consulting or by taking over temporary jobs they already have, say Camden and other industry officials.

"We expect that clients that have those kinds of workers and who are daunted by the complexity of the Affordable Care Act will look to staffing firms to help them manage those kinds of workers," said Edward Lenz, senior counsel for the American Staffing Association, a temp company trade group.

Staffing company share prices have shot up, partly in response to the recovering economy and partly because of hopes for a surge in Affordable Care Act business, industry analysts say. Manpower has risen by half since November while Kelly, Randstad and Robert Half are all up more than 35 percent, far more than the market as a whole.

A few years ago, when Massachusetts implemented its own requirement that companies provide health coverage to full-time workers, temp jobs increased six times faster than in the country as a whole, said Jeffrey Silber, who follows staffing company stocks for BMO Capital Markets.

The people running Dothan schools see a double benefit. By hiring substitutes through Kelly they'll avoid possible medical costs and at the same time dodge the complexities of how the health act affects subs, said personnel director Goodwin.

Sometimes subs work more than 30 hours and sometimes they don't, she said, and keeping track of who would be owed health coverage "would just be a continuing accounting nightmare."

Several other Alabama systems are hiring subs through Kelly, which has been offering health-law webinars through the state school superintendents association.

And no wonder, Goodwin said. At last year's meeting of the American Association of School Personnel Administrators, "that was one of the hottest topics," she said: "How this Affordable Care Act would affect school systems."

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Temp Agencies See Opportunity In Health Law: Will Substitute Teachers Be Offered Coverage?

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