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Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/108236
employers with at least 50 employees on an average of business days in 2013 will be deemed a large employer and will be subject to the employer mandate and its relative penalties of $2,000 per employee (minus the first 30 employees) for not providing coverage or $3,000 per employee who purchase subsidized coverage. "The main concern for these employers will be obtaining a safe harbor for affordability and maintaining the minimum essential coverage at the minimum value," Ingalls says. "These attributes will, in essence, immunize their company from ACA's penalties found in the employer mandate." Ingalls explains that smaller employers, depending upon their state, also will have the landscape of their coverage changed. "Coverage will be guaran- plan. This could equate to substantial differences in the level of coverage offered, the way it is priced and the manner in which it is delivered." According to Jack Edward Urquhart, partner, Beirne, Maynard & Parsons, L.L.P. in Houston, fairly viewed, the ACA is an experiment of immense scope and importance. "Its primary outcomes are either theoretical or completely unknown," Urquhart says. "A few things are certain: The ACA will increase the number of Americans who have access to health care and it will increase the federal government's investment in and control over this health care." Beyond that little is certain. Urquhart says the most significant uncertainties are Obamacare's fiscal and political sustainability. "This turns on the answer to two questions. Will the ACA improve the overall quality of American health care? Will the ACA significantly reduce the rate at which health care costs are increasing in this country?" Urquhart says. "If it achieves these goals, the ACA will be heralded as successful social legislation. But the ACA must produce demonstrable progress in meeting both of these goals within a very narrow timeframe—perhaps as few as four years—or it will fail at least in its present form." At Its Core teed issue, guaranteed renewable and will be priced based upon a 3:1 ratio for age and 1.5:1 ratio for tobacco use—gender will not be a pricing variance," Ingalls says. "Coverage will also include the minimum essential benefits without monetary annual or lifetime maximums and any coverage restriction being governed by the state selected benchmark www.npnweb.com n NPN Magazine Obamacare states that large employers—those with 50 or more fulltime or full time equivalent employees—must provide "affordable health insurance coverage" for their employees. "This requirement is met if the large employer provides coverage for all full-time employees; that pays for at least 60 percent of total covered health care costs; and no employee must pay more than 9.5 percent of family income to purchase the coverage," Urquhart says. "Large employers that do not meet this requirement are liable for penalties." Furthermore, if a large employer does provide coverage, but the coverage does not pay at least 60 percent of the total covered health care costs, employees can purchase coverage in an ACA created health insurance exchange and receive a premium tax credit. "If a single full-time employee does this, the employer is liable for penalties of $3,000 annually for each employee who does the same," Urquhart says. "The penalties increase yearly by the growth in premiums. This penalty is capped at the penalty amount for large employers who provide no health insurance coverage at all." Also, if a large employer provides coverage, but any employee will have to pay more than 9.5 percent of family income to purchase the employer coverJanuary/February 2013 21