The Affordable Health Care Act And Small Business

The Affordable Health Care Act And Small Business

Business is the gasoline of the world. It always has been. The focus of a successful business is what the business is selling and the employees of the business. The focus of society today as it relates to business is affordable health care. Small businesses and small business owners need to be able to offer health care to their employees in order to keep valuable employees on staff with them. This feat is impossible if you are a small business owner and the profits produced barely pay the employees!


The Affordable Care Act

The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, was devised with the congress and presidential administration before Bush. This administration decided to offer extra incentive to the newly formed workforce of women. Women bombarded the workforce ready and willing to work but they also had children and health care concerns for their children. This prompted the government to implement a plan where families can be covered for a certain amount of healthcare and the company where the employee worked would pay and percentage. And the battle for that percentage to be paid by the employer has been going on every since!

Small Businesses

With the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, small businesses can offer healthcare to their employees without going broke in the process. They can partner with the employee and pick the least expensive healthcare plan for the best price. This way the small business owner can pay a percentage of the cost and the employee can also. Everyone wins!

Exempt Businesses

The businesses that have over 100 employees are exempt from this plan because these businesses can design and pay for special discount healthcare for their entire company which will cover all of their employees. This rate is usually 10% or more lower than the market rate for group insurance. The employer also benefits from government tax write offs for having discount insurance available to their employees. It is most advantageous to make sure all of the employees are insured to get the tax benefits offered to companies that insure their employees.

Hospitals

Hospitals are a business just like any other. They get tax benefits from offering their employees healthcare at a discounted rate. The advantage for the hospital is that they get a bigger discount than most, and the employees usually know the physicians or know of the physicians and the staff so they have a good idea of who they want as a personal doctor based on their actual experiences with the physicians.

Who Else Is Exempt?

The wealthy are usually exempt from discounted healthcare, because they can afford healthcare! But some of their older family members may not be covered under their insurance umbrella. That is where supplements come into focus. Insurance supplements like those that supplement Medicare benefits "close up the medical loopholes" that can cause expensive and extensive medical bills because of lack of coverage for that particular service or therapy. These are some of the things that the Affordable Healthcare Act can and does cover under insurance policy specifics. The employer simply has to stipulate what percentage of what procedure will be covered by them, and the insurance company will pick up the rest. The advantage to this is that the employee gets the benefit of excellent healthcare for a nominal fee, the employer gets the tax benefits for providing affordable healthcare to their employees and everyone benefits from having good health and good healthcare available when they need it. Sarah Daren is a writer who creates informative articles relating to the field of health. In this article, she describes the affects of new health policies on small business and aims to encourage further study with a UC Health Informatics Online Degree. Enjoy this article? You've got time for another! Check out these related articles:Photo Credit: Shutterstock
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