Fact File: 2015 Affordable Care Act Provisions

While 2014 was the most pivotal year for Affordable Care Act (ACA) changes, this year has also introduced new rules for employers.

•  If you employ 100 or more full-time workers (currently considered 30-hours per week), you must offer at least 70 percent of your employees health coverage that is considered by ACA to be “affordable.” ACA says affordable coverage means that an individual employee’s premium does exceed 9.5 percent of their household income. It also must be adequate coverage, which translates to a 60 percent actuarial value (which is the value of what the plan covers). Fail to offer such coverage, and the federal government will hit you with a fee of $2,000 per full-time employee (but excluding the first 30 employees from the count). Next year, the number jumps to 95 percent of workers.
•  If you employ 50 to 99 workers, the mandate won’t apply to you until 2016. However there is a federal checklist that you must meet to qualify, which helps to ensure that you don’t methodically fire employees just to squeak under the threshold.
•  There are several initiatives floating around in Congress to backpedal on the mandate or bump up the full-time status to 40 hours per week.