The Affordable Care Act ( Aca ) Marketplace Reforms

Employers are able to get a tax break for offering health coverage to their employees

The Affordable Care Act passed in 2010 and signed by President Obama on March 23, 2010. The vision was to reform the health-care in America worked and dramatically decreases the number of uninsured individuals. President Barack Obama campaigned aggressively under the phrase’ “Yes We Can”. In the end “Yes he did” get the health-care reform legislation past and set into motion the overall of health insurance decades in the making. Many of the major objectives of the Affordable Care Act were setup to be implemented over time, most of which will be in place by 2016. Until then it is somewhat difficult to determine the true impact of the Affordable Care Act on individuals and their medical care and the financial impact of the costs. As,

The Patients’ Choice Act gives the American people opportunity to choose the health care plan that met the individual health needs. Obama admirations under the Democratic Party felt the need for a different health care reform, The Affordable Care Act (ACA). To justify this health care reform the Democratic Party implied that the health care crisis is caused by the uninsured and that everyone had a right to health care. Under the Patients’ Choice Act the American people keeps their freedom whether to have health care or not, but the ACA has a personal mandate that requires individuals to buy or carry health care insurance or face a fine (tax). To fund ACA will cost more than freedom, it’ll cost the individual American people and the government more money than The Patients’ Choice Act. The American people need affordable health care but not under government control.

A few key provisions employers need to be concerned with is “firms that employ fifty or more people who work thirty or more hours per week but do not offer them health insurance will have to pay a penalty to the government” (Snell, Morris, & Bohlander, 2013, p. 484). Also, “firms with 200 full-time employees will be required to automatically enroll new full-time employees in their healthcare plans” (Snell, Morris, & Bohlander, 2013, p. 484). Employers must similarly offer coverage to their employee’s children until they turn twenty-six years old. “Managers are also concerned

Many small business owners simply can’t afford to pay for part of insurance so they are forced to find a way out. Some businesses have cut employee hours and fired workers. This way, they don’t have to pay employee benefits. Others have decided that it is more cost effective to pay the fine for not insuring employees than it is to pay for employee insurance.

Employer sponsored health insurance is a health policy chosen and purchased by the employer and is provided to qualified employees and their families. Employers usually shares the insurance premium with employers. Employee based health insurance started early as 1910. Before World War II, only a few Americans had health insurance, but it only covered the hospital room, board, and ancillary services. During the war, more employee-based health insurances were being given to employees due to frozen wages by the National War Labor Board worker shortage. Employers were figuring out a way to attract employees to work and stay in their company, which meant that providing health insurance was the best option. Offering health insurance drew

Large corporations typically self-insure paying their employees' medical bills and hiring insurers to administer health benefits, while small businesses purchase group health coverage from insurers and face cost-increasing regulations as they go through the annual ritual of renewing their coverage. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) says that an employer must provide full-time employees with comprehensive health insurance for businesses that have over a certain number of employees. While businesses under a certain number of employees won't get penalized for not offering coverage. This is important because if you are a small business employee with very little take home, this gives you the option to allot that money for coverage or not. The cash value

Beginning in the year 2018, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will implement a nondeductible excise tax, namely the Cadillac Taxon, on all employers as well as health insurance issuers, and other entities administering health care plan coverage (Marathas, 2015). Under the new excise tax, an employer or health insurer offering a plan that costs more than $10,200 for an individual and $27,500 for a family would meant that the firm would be required to pay a 40% excise tax on the amount that exceeds the threshold (Wojcik, 2013). Supporters of the tax argue that employers need an updated view on cost control, basically, meaning they believe that, currently, many employees abuse their benefits and that by forcing consumers into paying a share of this cost, that they will be less likely to overuse or abuse their health care (Marathas, 2015). Those opposing the tax believe that it dishonestly “hollows out” and “slashes” employee health benefits (MDeverywhere, 2015).

under fifty employees working for them do not have to follow the employer mandate. In the Obama.net article it is stated that “the US Department of treasury reveals that 96 percent of companies in American are considered small business, this means they do not fall under the employer mandate.” These businesses are not obligated to offer health insurance coverage to their employees based on the laws that are in place (Obama.net 2016).

The United States of America government’s healthcare marketplace is a large e-government initiative which was a result of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) passed in 2010. Under this act, all Americans are required to have health insurance except in the case where individuals are exempt or make a shared responsibility payment. The aims of the of the ACA was to increase the quality and affordability of health insurance, lower the

From a business owner’s perspective, one of the biggest concerns regarding employee health benefits is the rising cost of health premiums. This is a legitimate concern, especially when you consider the cost of health premiums has been on a steady increase and isn’t likely to slow down any time soon.

Challenges for the employer and the situation include the issues related to government taxes such as Medicare and Social Security. In addition, the employer is bound to pay reasonable benefits to all of its employees equally. If the utility does not do this, and it is determined that Karen is an employee of the utility, and Karen is a legitimate case against the utility to recover the lost benefits. To rectify this situation, the utility should clarify exactly what Karen’s individual situation is, and hopefully with the help of a tax advisor. The advisor may suggest that Karen's work responsibilities be clearly delineated and that she be afforded the requisite benefits. Lastly, all necessary taxes, including payroll amounts for charges such as Medicare and Social Security need to be paid in full.

All staff members will receive a contribution of $250 per month towards the cost of health insurance. All management level employees will receive a contribution of $400 per month towards the cost of health insurance. All Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants and Employed Physicians will receive a contribution of $426 per month towards the cost of their health insurance. There will be no exceptions to the contribution levels or amounts. The Company contribution cannot be paid as wages in lieu of healthcare. If you choose a plan which costs less than the Company is contributing towards your health insurance, you will not receive the difference in wages. The funds cannot be applied towards dental, vision, or other ancillary insurances if you choose not to enroll in health

Let us take a moment to focus on the employee side of insurance. Lacking access to many of the professional research databases, many small businesses (including accounting firms) use Google as their main source of finding information. Sadly, this means that many fall prey to misadvise. Jeffrey Joyner, in his online article on small business health insurance states, that it is allowable for the employer to reimburse the employee for their health insurance premiums (Joyner J., 2016). However, IRC § 9831 (a)(2) states that if an S corporation maintains multiple arrangements for either shareholders or employees (and they are not covered by family coverage), the arrangements will qualify as a group health plan; and thus may eventually be subject to excise taxes under ACA market reforms. Mr. Joyner is partially correct; as long as the S corporation has only one participant in the plan, it is exempt under the “fewer than two participants who are current employees” IRS Notice 2015-17 exemption. Additionally, it is stated that employers that continue to reimburse individual plan payments, “after June 30, 2015… may be liable for the Code § 4980D excise tax” IRS Notice 2015-17.

The legally required employee benefits constitute nearly a quarter of the benefits package that employers provide. These benefits include employer contributions to Social Security, unemployment insurance, and workers’ compensation insurance. Altogether such benefits represent about twenty-one and half percent of payroll costs.