Although dogged by delays and uncertainties, the Affordable Care Act is already shaping how companies provide healthcare to their employees.
The sweeping healthcare reform package, signed into law March 23, 2010, is a mélange of requirements. The Obama Administration just announced that the employer mandate—the so called “pay-or-play” rule requiring any company with more than 50 full-time employees to provide healthcare or pay a penalty—would be delayed until January 2015. But that doesn’t let employers off the hook for new fees and other deadlines that still kick in over the coming months. (See “Fuzzy Math: Calculating the Compliance Costs,” for a rundown of those fees.)
