LAS VEGAS — No matter which side of the aisle you sit, there are changes today’s business owners need to be aware of when it comes to health care.
Seth Perretta, with Davis-Harman LLP, discussed a number of these changes with AAPEX attendees during “The New Health Care Law: What It Means for Your Business” on Wednesday morning. He says that employers yes, are in the business of producing goods and services, but they also have the relationship of offering benefits including health insurance.
“Health reform does a lot to change what employers can do, can’t do, must do. I think it’s important for anyone who either currently provides health insurance benefits or is considering providing health insurance benefits to understand what health reform does to existing law,” he says.
Simply put, health care reform has significant implications for employers who sponsor health benefits, and Perretta helped attendees look at what the law does in the near term, the mid-term and the long-term.
“We look at cost implications for employers and where there are decision points,” he says. “Where there are circumstances in the bill where employers have choices and what those choices are and how those choices affect cost and coverage.”
There are many points of health care reform of which people should take notice. For example, while many have heard of long-term things, there are dates coming up for other parts of the law, such as changes to calendar year plans taking effect Jan. 1.
“We need to understand that health reform is a massive piece of legislation but there are many things about health reform that were not much discussed during the debate,” Perretta says. “These provisions are very important for employers to understand as it pertains to their workforce. Both with respect to health care coverage, but also there are some important pieces in the bill that we call revenue raisers.”
Those are things added to the law to raise revenue to pay for health reform.
“Those revenues also have implications for employers. So whether it’s increased employee share of FICA tax, whether it’s a new 3.8 percent tax on passive income, whether it is new limitations on the amount of money you can put into a health (flexible spending account),” Perretta explains. “All of these things are things that employers might want to understand now, because they come into affect pretty soon.”
