The House Representatives passed a bill that would exempt volunteer firefighters and other emergency responder’s from being counted as full-time employees under the Affordable Care Act.

Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA), the author of the bill, noted that fire departments could exceed the 50-person threshold in several ways if volunteers were considered employees. The volunteer department could have more than 50 persons by itself, it could be part a combined paid-volunteer department, or it could be counted as part a municipality’s workforce.

Subjecting volunteer fire companies to the ACA mandates could result in “crippling new health care costs,” Barletta said. “Firehouses and municipalities across the country need assurance that they wouldn’t have to pay costly fines or shut down,” he added. “This bill provides them with that certainty.”

A similar bill was approved by the House in 2014 but died in the Senate after it was amended. At the time the IRS said it would not count volunteer emergency responder’s hours when calculating full- time employees, but it declined to say how it would classify their hours of service.

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