Healthcare Reform | InsureYourCompany.com

Yesterday President Obama signed into law an extension for the existing COBRA subsidy for employees that were involuntarily terminated from April 1st to May 31st. The subsidy provides a 15 month long 65 percent premium subsidy to employees to assist them during their transition to new employment. President Obama is looking to legislators to extend the subsidy to employees that were terminated for the whole year.

The COBRA subsidy was fist enacted in 2009 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to provide affordable health insurance coverage for recently terminated employees. According to USA Today COBRA enrollment has increased by 20 percent when no subsidy was available.
In addition, workers that let their COBRA lapse due to their subsidy expiring can re-active their COBRA with the subsidy if they pay back premiums.

Editor’s note: This is a special post by Insurance Broker Jerel Levenson of Technology Insurance Associates.

Every business owner is talking about the new health insurance reform signed into law by President Obama today. How will this affect me, what are my responsibilities?

The questions are overflowing.

As of today, there are no changes to the system, those changes that will occur, we will not see till calendar year 2014.

There are many legislative hurdles that must be jumped before the final legislation is enacted.

What I can tell all my clients is not to jump to conclusions and nothing will change today, remember the changes are down the road.

Anything I report is not the final law and will be changed many times before 2014.

Businesses that employ under 50 individuals will see no changes. Those over 50 employees will be required to OFFER health insurance. NO definition of contribution or participation levels have been discussed.

Every individual will be required to have insurance, how this will be policed has yet to be announced.

There will be standards established for every health insurance policy – these have yet to be announced

As time goes by, we will learn how the new law will affect all of us. For today, the system will remain exactly the same.

Some minor changes will occur within 6 months, children will be covered under parents till age 26.

Pre-existing conditions will phase out over time.

These are good ideas and ones that will help everyone. Remember, as the rules change , we will all be notified . We will all have time to make and plan for the changes.

Today’s system is definitely in need of repair, hopefully our legislators will make the correct changes and we will all see a better system.

American policies and laws have evolved over hundreds of years, the reform of health insurance will take time. Support those that support you and the system will evolve into one that is better for all of us.

There are a number of small business resources on the Web where you can learn more details.

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