Good News for Employers in 2010!

Small business owners are practical.  Now that health reform has passed, the question is “What’s the good news for me and my employees?” We’ll discuss several of the key provisions of the reform package in each upcoming post. Our goal is to make these changes easy to understand and recommend simple action steps to help businesses prepare. Keep your questions coming!

 

By the way, the changes listed here apply to both group and individual health plans.

 

 1. Expansion of Preventive Care Coverage

 

You and your employees will be fully covered for specific preventive care services with no co-pay. This is a key provision of the reform package—to erase any barriers to preventive health screening. The goal is to identify health problems early. Everyone wins here: we prevent more serious, more expensive health problems. 

 

There will be a list of preventives services that health plans will be required to cover—based on guidelines established by several federal entities.  No more will you be frustrated by the differences in health plans’ definitions of preventive care. 

 

2. Extension of Coverage for Adult Children to Age 26

 

All insurance plans that cover dependents will be required to offer adult children coverage up to age 26.

Currently, children over age 18 must be full time students to be covered under their parents’ health insurance; under the new legislation, adult children are no longer required to be students at all to be covered.  As one of our clients wrote, “now my daughter doesn’t have to take credits she doesn’t need to stay on our insurance. She can work part time, help pay for her education and get valuable work experience.” 

Adult children living at home, on their own, and even those who are married, are eligible. However, those who are offered health insurance through an employer are not eligible.

This extension is expected to significantly decrease the number of the uninsured since young adults make up 30% of the uninsured population.

 

 

When will these changes begin?

 

Here’s where it gets confusing. It’s not the same for everyone. Changes will begin on your first health plan renewal date on or after October 1^st, 2010 because they must be written into your new contract. 

 

 

What should employers do now?

 

Prepare, communicate, and wait for more information. We all know that these additional protections will be paid for by our premium dollars.  Anticipate that premiums will continue to rise and that the cost for dependent coverage, in particular, will be higher. One source has suggested that insurers may set up an additional pricing tier for dependents over age 18 to account for the additional cost to insurers.

 

Review your company policy for employer/employee cost sharing for health premiums, particularly regarding dependent coverage. Consider what changes you may want to make. Wait for more information before finalizing any new company policy. It’s going to be several months before the regulations are written, insurers rewrite contracts, and price the new benefits.  There are bound to be some surprises along the way! 

 

Communicate the good news to employees and alert them to the anticipated effective date of plan changes.  Urge your people to delay making any decisions about their children’s plans, until full information, including cost, is available.

 

We encourage you to share this information with fellow business owners. Please let us know if you would like to arrange a presentation for your business group!

 

Comments

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This is EXACTLY what we need-- a straight to the point, easy to comprehend article for most of us that have a hard time in keeping up with all the the fast paced news. Way to go Shargel! I will forward this to all my friends that will be affected by this.