The Obama Administration recently announced that it will delay the enforcement of the employer mandate contained in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) until 2015. Originally, the mandate was to begin in 2014, requiring companies with 50 or more full-time-equivalent employees to offer affordable health insurance or face penalties.
Even though the mandate rules have been pushed back it is important for companies to start planning now before the rules go into effect. We have developed a handy Employer Mandate Decision Tree to help employers determine how they will be impacted by the mandate.
While the employer mandate has been delayed until 2015, other provisions of the ACA will proceed as scheduled. That means the federal and state health insurance exchanges will be up and running by 2014 and employers will be responsible for distributing notices about these exchanges to employees by October 1, 2013. Employers can find model notices on the United States Department of Labor website http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/healthreform/index.html