Well, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has definitely gotten off to a rocky start. After its website, Healthcare.gov, officially opened for business, allowing uninsured Americans from 36 states to purchase health insurance online, it was quickly plagued by glitches that prevented many users from successfully signing up for an insurance plan. These hiccups have persisted, prompting critics of the ACA to call it a failure.
While it’s too soon to tell if Obama’s signature legislation will go the way of the dodo bird, the whole episode is just one more point in an already confusing health care landscape for small business owners.
One of the corner stones of the new plan is the SHOP Marketplace, scheduled to fully open in 2014. The SHOP health exchange market place is a Web portal where eligible small businesses with up to 50 employees can shop for and buy private health insurance for their full-time employees.
The goal with this online marketplace is to supposedly give smaller businesses the advantage of group purchasing power and just make the whole system more affordable. In some cases, small businesses may be eligible for a tax credit on employee premium payments.
The problem is that there are still many unknowns, like how much smaller businesses will really end up saving. All the delays on top of the on-going government shut down brings up the question of when the system will actually be up and running as planned, or if it ever will. This is particularly agonizing for those small businesses that are required by the new law to provide an employer-based healthcare plan in 2014.
All of this brings up many questions- especially for those running a small business hovering around the 50 employee mark:
Should you offer employer provided coverage or not? If you are employing fewer than 50 people, then you won’t be required to provide coverage. But, health benefits play a significant role in employee satisfaction. Deciding whether or not you are going to offer a health plan to your employees is a choice that affects more than just your bottom line; it also affects employee morale and retention.
Should you risk hiring more than 50 employees? If your business is going through a growth spurt and you need additional workers that will put you past the 50 employee mark, should you hire now or hold off till things settle a bit? The government has delayed the implementation of the employer mandate until January 1, 2015. After this grace period, small businesses face steep fines for each employee not covered by a plan. It may be worth the “risk” to hire now and see how much revenue those extra hands bring in.
What kind of health coverage should you offer? If you would like to provide some kind of coverage for your workers, but money is a concern. What are your options, especially given that healthcare costs are still very much on the rise?
According to the new legislation, the health care insurance provided by the business must pay for at least 60 percent of health care expenses, and employees may not be forced to pay more than 9.5 percent of their family income (before deductions and adjustments) for their employer-sponsored coverage. However, how you as a business owner are supposed to know the amount of “family income” of your employees is not yet addressed. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), on their healthcare.gov site, also defines a “comprehensive package of items and services, known as “essential health benefits.”
That’s a pretty hefty list of requirements that can feel like even more of a burden if you are struggling with lackluster sales.
The bottom line: as Obamacare starts kicking in, it seems that it’s generating more questions than answers for small employers. For now, the safest thing may be to wait it out a bit- at least until some of the most prominent kinks get ironed out.