Newsletter
Navigating Through Uncharted Territories
Washington, DC – The new hit item this summer isn’t the latest beachwear or the new line of big screen TV’s; it’s a giant map to guide Americans through the ObamaCare regulatory maze. In fact, your favorite retail stores are already stocking up – for their own use, of course.
“The ink’s barely dry on health-care reform legislation, and the regulations that will actually spell out the details of the provisions are just a twinkle in the regulatory agencies’ eyes. But a report by Mercer finds that retailers may be in the not-so-sweet spot when it comes to complying with some of the new employer requirement.”
“The consultancy analyzed data from its annual survey of employer health plans and found that 62% of retailers face problems with at least one of three big requirements of the new law: to provide ‘affordable’ coverage, to offer coverage for part-time employees working at least 30 hours per week, and to go above and beyond the limited benefit plans sometimes offered to part-timers.”
“Those provisions take effect in 2014, which ‘is going to come really fast for a lot of these companies,’ says Beth Umland, a principal and head of health and benefits research at Mercer.”
“The mandate to provide ‘affordable’ coverage is one of the knottier issues. Employers aren’t supposed to charge their full-time employees more than 9.5% of household income for coverage. If they do, and if even one employee receives government aid to purchase individual coverage through an exchange, the employer gets socked with a penalty.”
“But, Mercer notes, household income is not a figure that employers typically know. And there are a lot of other unknowns, including the level of coverage that must be offered in an ‘affordable’ plan. They estimate that 38% of employers have at least some workers whose current coverage would not meet the standard. (They subbed in the organization’s average full-time salary for the total household income.)”
ObamaCare…it’s Bad Medicine.
© Copyright 2003 by SCRP.info
Top of Page
| 
