Small Business

ACA subsidies are based on annual income, that means if you need assistance for part of the year you can end up owing credits if income increases later in the year.

5.8 million of 6 million firms have over 50 employees. Only 0.2% of small business who have over 50 don’t already provide coverage (or about 10 thousand firms).

The Marketplace offers coverage to those without employer coverage, when you get a job that offers coverage you can simply switch to the employer plan.

An employer can use a standard initial measurement period of between 3 and 12 months to determine full-time status for the employer mandate.

If you have two options for health insurance through two employers, you can take one and reject the other, or can take both and use one as a secondary plan.

As a small business if you offer group coverage to one full-time employee you must offer to all, same with part-time. Employers have to offer group coverage and not just reimburse individual coverage to get the tax benefits.

Typically under the ACA an employer must offer a group health plan instead of reimbursing individual coverage.

Under the ACA employers can use look-back periods of between 3 and 12 months. If an employee works more than 30 hours a week over a 120 day period, or at least 130 hours a month, they are considered full-time.

If an employee works over 30 hours a week on average, they are considered full-time by law. If the business has over 50 full-time equivalent employees they must offer coverage

If an employee changes employers often they should get a full-priced health plan on or off the Marketplace. This will avoid gaps in coverage.

Under the ACA cheaper plans typically have high deductibles, the ACA limits what these can be, but it can still be costly. Here are some tips and tricks.

Employers have pretty specific rules for health insurance reimbursement programs. The goal was to prevent large employers from skirting the mandate by reimbursing Marketplace subsidized coverage.

You can keep ObamaCare no matter what, but you can only keep subsidies if employer coverage would cost more than 9.56% of household income for employee-only coverage.

You can can cancel any health coverage at anytime, including employer sponsored coverage.

Any company operating in the US has to follow ACA guidelines. The IRS requests payments for non-compliance. If you feel a company is not complying with the law you can contact the IRS

If you have access to affordable employer coverage then you can’t get Marketplace cost assistance. You can’t claim a tax credit on premium tax credit form 8962

An employer can’t refuse coverage to a full-time employee, regardless of job classification, however they can credit hours in such a way that it may not qualify you.

There is no requirement for tracking full-time hours in the ACA, employers simply use existing standards, look-back periods, and reasonable methods of crediting hours.

Employers can use health care arrangements like employee payment plans to reimburse health premiums and costs, but these can’t be paired with non-group plans.

The mandate takes full-time equivalent employees into account, but doesn’t take average annual wages into account.

Per Diem employees can be considered full-time employees under the ACA if the work over 30 hours on average a year. Employers can use a look-back period of up to 12 months and reasonable methods of crediting hours to determine eligibility of full-time employees for health insurance. If an employee works more than 30 hours a week on average (or 28 as a safe harbor) they must be offered coverage as long as they maintain full-time status.

An employer has to offer coverage to employees based on how many full-time workers they have, nothing else. If one spouse has employer coverage it doesn’t effect whether the other spouse has to be offered coverage.

I am trying to make sure that our Bronze Save plan with Aetna does not qualify toward the minimum wage for our medical benefits. If we have a Bronze Save plan with Aetna, is that the same (not necessarily the same plan but same “level” as a Bronze Metal Plan as defined in the federal Affordable
Read the Answer

An employer can’t pay for a plan an employee choses if they have to comply with the employer mandate, but can reimburse a group plan.

If an employer owns a business in more than one state, or employees reside in more than one state the ACA offers a number of options.