Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Obamacare & How It Affects Your Business

By Jeannie Monette


All benefit greatly from health insurance which includes employees as well businesses found today. The opportunity to apply and get adequate insurance coverage isn't something that everyone is able to hold of particularly to small business. With the emergence of ObamaCare however, it is now easy to provide individuals adequate insurance coverage today. Small time business owners though still have doubts and speculations on how their business will be affected by this act.

ObamaCare, which is actually titled the Affordable Care Act, requires that employers purchase and provide the necessary health insurance for their workers or pay a penalty by 2015/2016. ObamaCare small business health insurance requirements offer nice incentives to such companies as they are given tax breaks and tax credits available via SHOP exchange. This is possible if the small business has an equivalent of 25 full-time employees or less. It should also be noted that 90% of US firms today have less than 20 full-time employees and ObamaCare does not necessarily hurt their business all in all.

Small business today are having a hard time providing their employees with the much needed insurance coverage and one of main reason is the rising health insurance costs. With ObamaCare however, employers are tasked to insure their full-time employees in small businesses with 50 or more employees. As mentioned earlier, businesses with 25 or less full-time employees get good amount of privileges such as generous tax credits if they ever decide to make use of ObamaCare.

By 2016 under the employer insurance mandate, business owners need to start insuring their workers. A huge part of this mandate is included in the Employer Shared Responsibility. Those who did not provide or offer health coverage to their 50 or more full-time employees will be required to pay an annual employer mandate fee. This fee is based upon the full-time equivalent employees and not just full-time employees. In addition, unlike the employer contributions to employee premiums, the Employer Shared Responsibility Payment is not tax deductible.

Discerning full-time and part-time employees under ObamaCare can be a little confusing. Under ObamaCare, those who work on an average of 30 hours a week or more and considered to be full-time and need to be provided with benefits under the law. While an average of less than 30 hours a week is considered to be a norm for part-time employees and no employer insurance mandate needs to be applied.

Whether you have full-time or part-time employees, it is always best to provide them with the necessary amount of protection throughout the whole course of their employment. This not only helps boost their overall productivity but also their morale. Find out more about ObamaCare and how this affects your business today.




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