Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010
Of all the amendments established under the reform of healthcare in the United States, no decree supersedes the amount of impact the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) imposes on healthcare reforms in the country. Enforced in 2010, the Affordable Care Act verifies the absent and basic authorized protections and access to inexpensive coverage for health insurance from conception to retirement (Wallace, 2012). The main objective of the PPACA is to enhance the rate of insurance regarding health covers. With respect to the coverage rate, the PPACA offers a broad array of techniques for both employers and employees in order to augment the rate of the health covers. Nevertheless, the PPACA, in its reform of the healthcare system, possesses considerable impacts on stakeholders, specifically employers, through the various sections it contains.
The PPACA affects employers based on some of the specific sections that it encompasses in order to administer its objectives. One of the sections within the Act that affects similar employers is the Employer Responsibilities Section. Section 1511 illustrates the Automatic Enrollment for Employees of Large Employers. With respect to this section, the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act amended this specific legislation with respect to the PPACA. Section 18A specifies that the Act provide its specifications based on employers that own more than 200 permanent employees and grant employees recruitment in one or more Health Benefits Plans. Based on the specifications of the Act, Section 18A provides that such employers should automatically recruit novel permanent employees within a Health Benefits Plan and should continue doing so by recruiting existing employees in the same plan (United States, 2010).
The implications arising from adoption of Section 18A of the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act within Section 1511 of the PPCA are considerable to the employer. This is due to the assertion that both sections imply the appointment of new employees to health benefit plans. The sections do not consider the extraneous costs that the firm will incur based on the inculcation of new employees within the plan (Durenberger, 2003). Additionally, incorporating novel employees to the plan requires a sufficient increase of finance within the cover in order to facilitate the health benefits the new employees will receive within the plans. As such, taxable income will increase based on the amount that each employee will contribute to the plan. This presents a problem in the long run since there is the probability of employees imposing a Wage-Push inflation, in which they will demand wage increases in order to mitigate for the contributions of the health benefit plans (Aaron & Burman, 2008).
The most notable issue regarding the Employer Responsibilities Section regards health coverage of the workforce. This gains coverage in Section 1513, Shared Responsibility for Employers (United States, 2010). Through amendment of Section 4980H of Chapter 43 of the Internal Revenue Code, the PPACA section requires employers not granting health coverage to permanent employees or to a single permanent employee, to set aside a measurable compensation corresponding to the result of the related imbursement amount and the number of permanent employees employed in the month (Feldman, 2012; Barr, 2007). As such, if the employer fails to cover permanent employees irrespective of the external conditions that may affect the business such as tax laws, compensation is eminent and obligated.
The PPACA possesses considerable implications on employers with respect to health coverage. Irrespective of the prevailing economic conditions, the Act provides stringent decrees that put employers at a disadvantage if they fail to meet such obligations. As the PPACA strives to enforce such legislations, its aim of covering uninsured Americans will gain accomplishment with time and this greatly assists the economy in its recovery.
References
Aaron, H. J., & Burman, L. (2008). Using taxes to reform health insurance: Pitfalls and promises. Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution Press.
Barr, D. A. (2007). Introduction to U.S. health policy: The organization, financing, and delivery of health care in America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Durenberger, D. F. (January 01, 2003). Inside-out, bottom-up healthcare reform. Healthcare Financial Management: Journal of the Healthcare Financial Management Association, 57, 11, 66-8.
Feldman, A. M. (2012). Understanding health care reform: Bridging the gap between myth and reality. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
United States. (2010). The patient protection and affordable care act. Washington, D.C: U.S.G.P.O.
Wallace, G. (2012, June 25). “‘Obamacare’: The word that defined the health care debate”. Retrieved from <http://edition.cnn.com/2012/06/25/politics/obamacare-word-debate/index.html?_s=PM:POLITICS/>
