The Affordable Care Act still has a lot of unanswered questions, especially when it comes to organizations and their role in providing healthcare to their contingent workforce. Here is the first installment of a series based on the American Staffing Association’s answers to these pressing questions.
In this Affordable Care Act look-in, we take a look at employer responsibilities and how ACA will impact YOUR organization.
- Employer shared responsibility. Effective January 2015, staffing firms and their client companies are subject to new rules involving employer shared responsibility. This will apply to any company employing over 100 individuals on a full-time basis which the ACA classifies as “Large” employers. Most staffing agencies will qualify as large employers.
- Pay option. If an employer does not offer minimum essential coverage to at least 70% of their full-time staff they will be charged a monthly excise tax. This is calculated to be as much as $2000 a year. This coverage must also apply to the employees dependents up to the age of 26.
- Play option. If an employer does offer coverage to their employees they will not be charged the tax unless the plan offered is considered unaffordable or does not provide minimum value as described by the ACA. If this is the case they will be charged a monthly tax that can reach up to $3000 per year for any employee who qualifies for the subsidy.
- Minimum essential coverage. The definition of minimum essential coverage according to the ACA is the “amounts paid for the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease, or amounts paid for the purpose of affecting any structure or function of the body.”
- The value and affordability. An unaffordable plan is one that exceeds 9.5% of the employee’s wages. For a plan to be considered to have minimum value it must cover 60% of services. Core services that need to be covered include physician and mid-level practitioner visits, hospital and emergency costs, pharmacy costs, and laboratory and imaging services.
At HTSS Inc, we provide staffing solutions for organizations across Lehigh Valley. If the Affordable Care Act has your organization worried or anxious, contact our team of experienced recruiters to learn how a partnership with our team can positively impact yours!