On Tuesday, July 2nd the White House announced that the penalties associated with the failure of a business to provide any medical insurance OR "affordable" insurance, as defined by the terms and conditions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA / Obamacare), will no longer be in place on 1/1/14. Instead these requirements of the ACA will now be in effect on 1/1/15.

Some brief thoughts on this very significant development:

• Exchanges, which allow the uninsured to secure insurance unfettered, will still be available and in place on 1/1/14.

• All other provisions of the ACA remain.

• The lack of penalties opens the door for businesses, specifically those who had slowed / frozen hiring activity so as to avoid the 50 employee (or equivalent) threshold, to more freely hire / expand immediately...at least until 1/1/15, when the penalties are expected to be in place.

• Premiums for healthcare coverage that renews 1/1/14 and beyond are still expected to increase from 15% to 100% over what rates were for 2013.

With the above in mind please consider the following:

• Planning for your health insurance renewal, especially those with a 1/1/14 renewal date, should start no later than 8/1/13. There is still a lot to consider and to address.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently overturned Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), now giving legally married gay and lesbian couples the same benefits that were previously only available to heterosexual married couples. A small sampling of the benefit areas now offered to these same sex couples are COBRA, leave eligibility as it pertains to the FMLA, spousal retirement benefit eligibility, social security benefits, and access to spousal pension plans. These benefits aren't only to be offered going forward - there is also the  possibility of retroactive benefit claims. 

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For those that lead, it is important that they can represent the ability to motivate those they supervise. It may be an equally important skill even for those at a staff level. It's not good enough for someone to say they are a good leader. You need / want to see evidence of this ability. The best way to do this is to ask for examples of past behavior; past successes. Careful to listen for actual actions on the candidate's part vs. actions attributed to others. 

Businesses seem to have no trouble tracking sales, expenses, and even headcount. Why is it so hard to track time off? The answer typically is because there is no system for having time off taken easily reported. It is extremely important for productivity, morale and fairness sake that we make a greater effort to track the time taken. Simple processes involving an email that someone is out is a start. Sending all management a weekly or monthly time off taken card to complete and submit back can also work. Lastly make the employee partially responsible for reporting the time they take. Oh --- and at the end of each month / quarter / year send a summary of time taken to both parties and ask them to sign off. There's no better way to find discrepancies.

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Have questions about  The Affordable Care Act?

OperationsInc is here to provide the answers.

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