Tag Archives: employer mandate

Looking at the conservative ‘heritage’ of some core ACA features

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Photo: Fibonacci Blue via Flickr

The New York Times Magazine recently looked at the prolonged fight against the Affordable Care Act (ACA) waged by Heritage Action for America, the political arm of conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, which has helped populate the Trump administration both in and out of health care.

Vice President Mike Pence and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price are Heritage supporters and have brought in like-minded associates.

But, as we have seen, the task of repealing the ACA is hard, in part because the legislation has changed the health care landscape in so many ways. Continue reading →

Contributing editor to Politico Magazine and former health care editor-at-large, Politico, Commonwealth Fund journalist in residence and assistant lecturer at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

A deeper look at the employer mandate and the work week

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The employer mandate was pushed back for 2014 and is being phased in more gradually in 2015-16. What portion of the workforce does this affect?

And what’s going on with that “30-hour” work week? That’s how the Affordable Care Act defines full time, and the GOP has legislation (likely to pass the House in early March – far less likely in the Democratic-led Senate) that would change the definition to the more standard 40-hour week.

As we’ve pointed out before, you hear a lot of talk about how the Affordable Care Act will hurt small business. But if you report those claims, be careful of the definitions. Small businesses with fewer than 50 full time equivalent (FTE) workers are and have always been exempt from the employer mandate. They can, if they wish, get coverage through the new (but still fairly underdeveloped) SHOP exchanges. But whether they choose to and how much they contribute to their workers’ coverage is up to them. Continue reading →

Contributing editor to Politico Magazine and former health care editor-at-large, Politico, Commonwealth Fund journalist in residence and assistant lecturer at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

What’s behind the delay in implementing the employer mandate and what it means

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The Treasury Department on July 2 announced a one-year delay in the employer mandate under the Affordable Care Act.

I had just been gathering a whole bunch of material to explain to AHCJ members what employers do and do not have to do under the health law – some of which we’ll put aside for now as it’s going to change in the coming months as the rules get revamped for 2015. But it’s still important to make a few general points as this issue isn’t going away.

One thing you will hear a lot – a whole lot – from critics of the health reform law is that the mandate is killing small businesses. The first thing you should ask is “How are you defining small business?” Because businesses with 50 or fewer workers DO NOT have to cover their workers. Not this year. Not next year. They are not part of the employer mandate. Period. Continue reading →

Contributing editor to Politico Magazine and former health care editor-at-large, Politico, Commonwealth Fund journalist in residence and assistant lecturer at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.