How Health Care Reform Will Impact Businesses

The world of public policy shook Sunday when the health care reform bill passed in the House. Now in the aftermath, supporters and detractors debate with their friends and colleagues over its impact. What’s more, many business owners are now left wondering what this means for them. The Christian Science Monitor offers about the most coherent and concise synopsis I’ve seen. Read on:

Let’s start with a caveat: that dry cleaner, and probably the restaurant, might be too small to be affected by some of the most important business-related elements in the bill. Employers with 50 or fewer workers would be exempt from coverage provisions.

But for top executives at firms with 50 workers or more, the most important question may be this: would the health care reform bill require us to offer health insurance to our employees?

The answer to that is “no,” strictly speaking. But if you don’t, you might have to pay fairly large fees to Uncle Sam.

How does the bill work for businesses?

Here’s how that works: If you are a firm with more than 50 employees, and do not offer health insurance as a benefit, and at least one of your full-time employees gets a subsidy from the federal government to purchase health insurance on his or her own, you would have to pay Washington a fee of $2,000 for every one of your full-time workers. (Company accountants take note: you could subtract the first 30 of your employees from that assessment.)

Got that?

Also, even if you do offer coverage, you might have to take some extra action to help any of your low- or middle-income workers who want to buy insurance on their own.

Take an employee who makes less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level, which today is about $10,800 for an individual, or $22,000 for a family of four.

Perhaps that employee is finding firm-offered insurance expensive. If their share of health premiums is more than 8 percent of their income (but less than 9.8 percent), they would have the option of going out and buying insurance on their own through the new-fangled “exchange” marketplaces the health care reform bill would establish.

And you, as an employer, would have to help them. You’d have to provide them a “free choice voucher” equal to what the firm would have kicked in to provide coverage in the company plan.

When do the changes take effect?
All of the above changes would take effect beginning on Jan. 1, 2014.

One final item: if you’re a firm with more than 200 employees, and you do offer health insurance, you would have to automatically enroll your workers in the plan.

They could opt out of the coverage. But they are the ones that would have to make that decision.

Here is a video from last week of Indiana Chamber President Kevin Brinegar discussing the bill, labeling it "poor public policy" due to its tax increases on payroll, medical devices, etc., which will lead to job cuts. You agree?

One thought on “How Health Care Reform Will Impact Businesses

  1. It was a lot of fun watching these idiotic Republicans “warning” the Democrats that the passage of health care reform will cost them dearly at the polls in November.

    “OH, PLEASE DON’T THROW ME IN THAT BRIAR PATCH, BRER BEAR!!”

    It’s going to cost someone dearly, alright, but it won’t be the Dems. Former Bush 43 speechwriter Davin Frum put it perfectly yesterday when he said that it was the Republicans – not Barack Obama – who had met their “Waterloo”. The historical rule of politics, that an incumbent president’s party always loses ground in the midterm elections, will go out the window come November. They will be unable to win without the help of the moderates. At this moment the moderates are abandoning this sinking ship en masse. The extremism of people like Michele Bachmann and John Beohner is starting to scare the hell out of them. Gee, I wonder why!

    Then there is the sticky situation of the Tea Party. By this late point it must be obvious to even the casual observer that this is an organization comprised of morons. It was formed as a protest movement against high taxes – immediately after President Obama passed the largest middle class tax cut in American history. There’s no denying it, these are not the brightest people on the planet. Their overt racism notwithstanding, they sure are funny! One self identified Tea Partier called into C-SPAN’s Washington Journal the other day asking the moderator where she could write to her congressman. When host Greta Brawner asked this idiotic woman what her congressman’s name was, she replied (I assume with a straight face) “He’s a Democrat. I don’t know his name.” Ya gotta love ‘em! Ya just gotta!

    I hope you don’t mind this New Yorker’s comment. My mom was from South Bend – Susanne Clements. Any old timers remember her?

    https://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com

    Tom Degan

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