OBAMACARE EMPLOYER MANDATE : How it works and how would it affect you when it's Replaced?

Under the Affordable Care Act, the federal government, state governments, insurers, employers, and individuals are given shared responsibility to reform and improve Health Insurance Coverage in United States. This reform is aimed to improve the availability, quality and affordability of Health Insurance in United States. The “Employer Mandate” is officially part of the Employer Shared Responsibility Provision under the Affordable Care Act.

The “Employer Mandate” dictates that Large Employers must offer an Affordable health plan providing minimum value to 95% of it’s Full Time Employees or face a penalty.

1.Where, Large Employers define Firms with 100 or more employees (The mandate does not apply to employers with 49 or less FTE and doesn’t not apply to part-time workers) , Affordable meaning employer-sponsored coverage must cost no more than 9.5% of household income, Minimum Value implies that Coverage offered to employees must have an average cost sharing of 60%( If coverage isn’t affordable employees can use the Marketplace and the employer can be fined) , Full Time Employees meaning Employees who work at least 30 hours per week or whose service hours equal at least 130 hours a month for more than 120 days in a year and lastly, Penalty culminating to the fee is $2,000 per full-time employee (minus first 30 full-time employees).

2.If an employer doesn’t provide coverage, provides coverage that doesn’t offer minimum value, or provides coverage that is unaffordable, then they must make a per-employee, per-month “Employer Shared Responsibility Payment“. The IRS will provide the employer with a notice about the payment. Employers will not be required to include the Employer Shared Responsibility payment on any tax return that they file.

3. Spouses do not count as dependents; coverage does not have to be offered to spouses.

4.For plan years beginning in 2015 only, the penalty is $2,000 for each full-time employee minus the first 80 employees. For plan years beginning in 2016 and beyond, employers can exclude 30 full-time employees from the penalty calculation.

Under Trump care which Repeals the mandates for both individuals to pay a fee for not having coverage and for large employers to insure their employees. Technically, it repeals the fees for the individual and employer mandates, not the mandates themselves. May sound sweet and sour at the same time Individuals paying a fee/penalty for not purchasing a health plan seems a welcoming step on the other hand, Large Employers won’t be responsible to provide their Employees Health Insurance plan, that means Employer Shared Responsibility Provision under the Affordable Care Act works no more. This is going to hurt a lot of employees!

• Thus, the mandate is currently in effect for all qualifying employers untill the Bill becomes the Law.

• Today The Bill to Replace Obamacare passed successfully from U.S. House and may be called half way through when it is finally going to be tested among Senates.

• “We’re going to have insurance for everybody,”Mr. Trump said in an interview with The Washington Post. “There was a philosophy in some circles that if you can’t pay for it, you don’t get it. That’s not going to happen with us.”