Business Health Insurance Small

Under Obama’s health care bill, employers will be required by law to provide health insurance to even part-time employees. Fortunately, contained within the bill’s 2409 pages are several provisions designed to make sure that small businesses will be able to afford these extra measures.

In 2014, the health care bill will take full effect. At this point, insuring your body becomes like insuring your car—it is now part of the expense, like fuel and washing, or food and hygiene. The point where this comparison fails is in how every American has a body—one cannot choose not to buy one. To that end, there will naturally be more tolerance, and the responsibility of providing insurance now falls to one of three institutions: privately-purchased insurance, employer-provided insurance, and government-provided insurance.

How New Rules Will Effect Small Business Health Insurance

Among the many variables considered by the United States congress is the effect which reform will have on small businesses. Small businesses are a vibrant and important part of capitalism, and both parties understood that the more they were forced to pay for health insurance, the less capital they would have to sustain their innovations. To that end, each state is now setting up Small Business Health Options Programs, or SHOP Exchanges.

A “SHOP Exchange” describes a group of allied small businesses which pool their money to buy health insurance for their employees. By combining resources with government backing, small businesses will be able to purchase larger, more efficient insurance packages and thus compete with larger conglomerations like Wal-Mart or Starbucks.

A Peek at Future Small Business Health Insurance

To demonstrate how this universal health care will change small businesses, let us consider the story of Jordan, a 55 year-old restaurant manager, and Greg, a 25 year-old server. Jordan likes Greg—he knows his way around and does a good job at training new servers. With a few more Gregs around, Jordan thinks, the restaurant would run itself.

The problem with Greg is the same problem with all the competent help—they leave to get better jobs. Jordan can’t provide health insurance. Greg can’t manage it in his budget. He’s even thinking about getting married—not so because he’s with the woman of his dreams, but because then at least he could get health care.

Four years from now, the rules will be vastly different. Jordan will be paying a monthly fee to his local SHOP Exchange, much or all of which is paid for through government tax credits designed specifically for small business owners with fewer than fifty employees. Greg’s desire to continue working or find new employment is no longer based on the nerve-wracking financial decision of whether or not to purchase health insurance.

In return, Jordan gets to keep and continue training a valuable employee. If Greg decides to stay on for ten years and continues to be a competent employee, he might someday manage the restaurant as Jordan nears retirement. In this way, removing the concern for health insurance frees both employee and employer for tasks that more directly relate to the business in question.

Though health care is a source of rabid debate among United States political parties, this is one issue in which both leading parties are of one voice. Both Democrats and Republicans agree that small business interests are an integral part of American business. The debate exists more in the details of how best to secure those interests, and that debate is, for the time being, over. American small businesses now face different rules in health insurance.