The Affordable Care Act and You
In less than 1 year many of the Affordable Care Act provisions will take effect. Do you know how it's going to affect you as an individual? As a business owner? Are you prepared? Here are some key elements that you should know:
- Small Business Tax Credit - If you have up to 25 employees, pay average annual wages below $50,000, and provide health insurance, you may qualify for a small business tax credit of up to 35% (up to 25% for non-profits) to offset the cost of your insurance. This will bring down the cost of providing insurance. Starting in 2014, the small business tax credit goes up to 50% (up to 35% for non-profits) for qualifying businesses. This makes the cost of providing insurance even lower.
- Employer Responsibility Provision - The Affordable Care Act does not require all employers to provide health insurance for their employees. The Employer Responsibility provision of the Affordable Care Act applies businesses with more than 50 full-time workers.
-
Affordable Insurance Exchange - Starting in 2014, individuals and small businesses with generally fewer than 100 employees will be able to shop in an Affordable Insurance Exchange—a new, transparent, competitive marketplace where individuals and small businesses can buy affordable, qualified health benefit plans.
- Grandfathered or Non-Grandfathered - The Affordable Care Act exempts most health insurance plans that existed on March 23, 2010 from some of the law’s consumer protections. This preserves consumers’ rights to keep the coverage they already had before healthcare reform. This is true whether you are covered by an individual health insurance policy that you had on that date, or you are covered by a job-based health plan that your employer established before March 23, 2010. This is also true even if you enrolled in that job-based plan sometime later. If however, the group or individual plan is changed, such as increasing the deductible, the plan becomes Non-Grandfathered, or ACA complient.
If you would like to make your plan ACA compliant you will need to contact your agent or insurance carrier.
If you would like more information about group or individual health insurance plans please call us or simply click here to complete our online quote form.
To read more key features of the Affordable Care Act and how it impacts your healthcare, you can visit http://www.healthcare.gov/law/features/index.html.
|