Healthcare Reform for Small Business

It seems hard to believe that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed in 2010. In the last three years things have been pretty confusing for small businesses.

Would the ACA survive the legal challenges that went all the way to the Supreme Court?

Would the heated 2012 Presidential election affect the timeline and funding for certain provisions of the law?

How about the different states and their decisions to expand Medicaid or start a Health Insurance Exchange?

It is no wonder that most business owners and managers have been too confused to do any real planning on how they will begin to comply with the new laws or to really understand the impact on their businesses – both negative and positive.

As the provisions of the Affordable Care Act begin to take effect employer sponsored health coverage is likely to change dramatically, specifically for small businesses.

In the ACA, a small business is not specifically defined, but a number of sections of the law apply to entities with fewer than 25 employees. For some provisions of the law, the effective company size is 50 or 100 employees. It is no wonder that business owners and managers by and large do not understand their rights and obligations!

Unfortunately, much of the popular press on these issues are filled with half-truths and misinformation.

I hope that my blog can be the go-to guide for small business owners and managers to navigate their decision process for understanding the options that their employees will have for healthcare under the Affordable Care Act.

The site will attempt to cut through the political rhetoric and misinformation in the press today and address the practical answers to questions that they have left in many cases to small business human resource professionals.

Healthcare Options for Small Business is not to replace the nuts and bolts of compliance with certain mechanics of the law but to provide scenarios and case studies and be a practical, no nonsense guide for businesses to understand their options for providing healthcare or not to their employees and themselves and the government benefits, penalties, and occasionally opine on larger questions around workplace wellness, etc.

As a business manager of a small business that focusses on healthcare providers (hospitals, nursing homes, etc.), I have been afforded a birds-eye view on why the delivery of healthcare in America is beginning to change based on my customers and their economic realities.

I believe that some of the emerging models of care could be very beneficial for American businesses.

However, my experience with “Benefit Brokers” or HR professionals is that they rarely take innovative approaches to providing healthcare choices to the business owner or manager. This site is intended to be for the “boss” – the business owner or manager who wants to be informed of options, obligations, ideas that may not be delivered through the traditional channels as part of their decision making process.

I hope you will find this site helpful. I would love to hear from you on what questions you have and what scenarios you are considering. Thanks for reading!