Your Business Under Obamacare

By Jeannie Monette


Everyone benefits greatly with health insurance and this is especially true when dealing with your employees and business. However, not everyone has the privilege to apply and get the necessary amount of insurance coverage particularly with regards to small business. With the emergence of ObamaCare it is now easy to provide individuals a measure of insurance coverage today. With that said, a lot of small time business owners are quite worried that this may affect their business entirely.

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.

The much needed insurance coverage may be hard to achieve especially today due to rising health cost giving small business problems in providing insurance to their employees. In small businesses with 50 or more employees however, ObamaCare is requires employers to insure their full-time employees. As mentioned before, if one ever decides to make use of ObamaCare they get a good amount of privileges such as generous tax credits to businesses with 25 or less full-time employees.

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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