What Does the Affordable Care Act Mean for Your Business? (3647 hits)
By ROBB MANDELBAUM The Agenda
How small-business issues are shaping politics and policy.
It’s been three and a half years since the Affordable Care Act became the law of the land, and the enormous changes it will bring to the American health insurance market are upon us. As of Tuesday — glitches and delays aside — small-business owners and individuals are able to begin shopping for health insurance policies on online exchanges, and in many cases receive tax credits to offset the cost.
There are preliminary indications that the health care law may already be having positive impacts on both individual premiums and underlying medical costs. But setbacks have bedeviled the law, especially the parts specifically aimed at small companies. The tax credits to help small businesses defray the cost of covering employees have been judged too parsimonious by some to induce many businesses to obtain new coverage. The Internal Revenue Service has been slow to write rules governing the law’s so-called employer mandate. The Small Business Health Options exchanges, as they are known, have had several problems — including the White House’s recent acknowledgement that small businesses will not be able to enroll online through the exchanges until November. (They should be able to enroll by phone or fax this month.)
As the Affordable Care Act has lurched toward implementation, the voices of small businesses have been somewhat missing from the discussion of what happens next — at least, that is, the unmediated voices of small businesses. Advocates on both sides of the issue are always happy to find a small-business owner with a pre-existing point of view when a reporter calls.
