It’s the single most controversial law passed by Congress in the last 10 years. Business groups spent hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat it in Congress and to have it overturned in the courts. But now, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the law.
Employer‐sponsored health care plans are the source of health insurance for more than 56 percent of Americans, so it is not surprising that the ACA has a significant impact on American employers. That is especially true in California where nearly 80 percent of employers offer health care to their employees.
Without question, the single most talked about aspect of the ACA is the “shared responsibility” requirement on employers with more than 50 employees. Starting in 2015, employers of that size will be required to offer health care insurance to employees who work more than 30 hours in a week or pay a penalty.
But the ACA imposes many other obligations on employers. For example, on October 1, 2013, employers must provide notice to employees of the health care exchanges that are being created under the ACA. Employers in San Francisco will need to ensure that the notices they provide also satisfy their obligations under that city’s Health Care Security Ordinance. Employers also are going to be met with the burden to consider implementing wellness plans and to train managers on new kinds of retaliation that can arise under the ACA. For unionized employers, they will have to meet the challenges imposed by the ACA’s tax on so‐called Cadillac health care plans that are popular with larger unions.
At 906 pages, the ACA is one of the most complicated and cumbersome laws to pass Congress in some time. Nonetheless, an employer does not need to be well‐versed in every intricacy of the law in order to fulfill its obligations under it.
This guide has been designed by Hirschfeld Kraemer experts to provide you with the information you need to navigate the most compelling aspects of the ACA on a day‐to‐day basis.
Click here to read the complete Hirschfeld Kramer client elert about the impact of the Affordable Care Act on employers in California.