Employers Face Affordable Care Act Deadline

The clock is ticking for thousands of U.S. employers facing deadlines to make changes to the health insurance they offer their employees under the Affordable Care Act, reported the Wall Street Journal. Even those who already met the law’s requirement to offer health insurance to at least 70% of full-time staffers by 2015 are trying to determine whether their plans are affordable to their employees, as required under the law. The cost cannot exceed 9.5% of employees’ annual salaries, the law says.

A minority of business owners are considering trimming their head counts below the 50 full-time-worker cutoff or reducing their workers’ hours rather than comply with the requirement, which begins in January for companies with 100 or more employees.

Others have run the numbers and concluded that their best financial move is simply to skip the requirement and instead pay penalties, $2,000 for each full-time worker after the first 30. But most business owners are expected to comply, or already do, consultants say.

Owners should “fish or cut bait,” maintains Andy Birol, a small-business consultant in Pittsburgh, Pa. He thinks many owners are spending too much time and money contemplating how to deal with the law when they should be focused on running their business.

“You must make a decision as soon as possible,” he says. “The moment of truth is coming right around the corner.”

Smaller businesses, those with 50 to 99 workers, have until 2016 to comply with the law. Companies with fewer than 50 workers are exempt from the employer mandates. S