Affordable Care Act - Obamacare

January 1, 2014- That is the effective date in which the Affordable Care Act goes into effect for organizations that have more then 50 employees. Organizations with less than 50 employees are exempt. Full-time employees (working more than 30 hours per week) count as 1 employee. Employees working less than 30 hours count as part of an employee (a 15 hour employee would count as 0.5 full-time equivalency) Bancroft-Rosalie School has 48 "full-time" employees. Part-time coaches also count toward the 50 employees, so the school will be very close to 50, possibly too close to risk going over. So what does the law require? 1. Full-time employees must have the opportunity to enroll in an insurance plan that has "minimum value coverage". Minimum value coverage is an insurance plan that pays for at least 60% of covered health care expenses for a typical population. Bancroft-Rosalie School currently offers this to all full-time employees. 2.The insurance plan must be affordable. The employee cannot pay more than 9.5% of their family income for the employer insurance coverage. If either of these conditions are not met, the employee can choose to buy coverage in an Exchange and receive a premium tax credit. The penalty to the employer is $3000 annually for each full-time employee receiving a tax credit up to a maximum of $2000 times the number of full-time employees minus 30. The penalty will increase each year to account for the growth in insurance premiums. The employer only needs to offer affordable minimum value coverage to avoid the penalty- If the employee chooses not to take the insurance there is no penalty. This situation may exist when an employee accepts a cash in-lieu of insurance option because they have insurance coverage through their spouse.