Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a massive, nearly $1 trillion health care overhaul that will, for the first time, cement insurance coverage as the right of every U.S. citizen and begin to reshape the way virtually all Americans receive and pay for treatment.
So how will this affect your small business? Will you have to buy insurance for your employees?
The answers depends on the size of your firm, according to an MSNBC guide “Health reform and you”. Companies with fewer than 50 workers wouldn’t face any penalties if they didn’t offer insurance.
Companies could get tax credits to help buy insurance if they have 25 or fewer employees and a workforce with an average wage of up to $50,000. Tax credits of up to 35 percent of the cost of premiums would be available this year and would reach 50 percent in 2014. The full credits are for the smallest firms with low-wage workers; the subsidies shrink as companies’ workforces and average wages rise.
Firms with more than 50 employees that do not offer coverage would have to pay a fee of up to $2,000 per full- time employee if any of their workers got government-subsidized insurance coverage in the exchanges. The first 30 workers would be excluded from the assessment.
As we learn more about this massive piece of legislation, we’ll try to pass it on, but this should answer some of the immediate questions small businesses are asking about.
Steven A. Feinberg – www.AppletreeBusiness.com – Get Appletree Blog via Email!
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: | Employee Health Insurance, Health Care Reform, Small Business
