The FINANCIAL -- At an event on April 26 focusing on the issues and timeline surrounding businesses complying with the new health care law, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce unveiled its new detailed primer entitled, "Critical Employer Issues in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," to guide employers through the process of transitioning their benefits to meet the terms of this new law.
"While employer groups may have varied membership and sometimes competing priorities, our number one health care priority right now needs to be explaining the new law to businesses, and helping them understand what it will mean, so they can decide how best to cope and comply," said R. Bruce Josten, executive vice president of Government Affairs for the Chamber.
The law requires individuals to purchase health coverage and for some employers to provide it or face penalties. The law sets out standards for minimum essential benefit plans available through exchanges and provides premium and cost sharing assistance to individuals with income below 400% of federal poverty level. It also provides some tax credits for certain small businesses to help offset the cost of insurance. The law, which makes significant insurance reforms, is financed by increased and new taxes and cuts to the Medicare program.
"As we go forward, we need to remember the important things we can do and are working on in the private sector – where real budgets and bottom lines force us to come up with real solutions," Josten said. "Fixing the health care system, and managing to not break the parts that are currently working well is a challenging job. It's going to take a lot of time and effort. For the Chamber, that means we continue to work for good regulations, to make legislative changes, and if necessary to pursue legal action. In this fall's midterm elections, we will hold members of Congress accountable for helping – or hurting – America's job creators during one of the toughest economic situations we've ever had."
As the primer indicates, the health reform law is sweeping in nature and will result in many changes throughout the market. Employers that have been providing voluntary health benefits will now be faced with new structures on benefit design, fines for not providing coverage, increased taxes, and some incentives to maintain coverage.
Considering the challenge of implementation and the fact that much discretion has been granted to the government to implement the law through regulation, there are still many unanswered questions about the specific impact the law will have on employers, their workers, and their families.
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