45 Days to Open Enrollment for ACA

It's only 45 days until open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act begins.  States, employers, employees, insured and uninsured are all waiting and wondering how this will work.  I wish I could give some idea about what will happen but I feel I'm not alone in not knowing anything about it.

Here's what I do know.  You can sign up now at www.healthcare.gov to set up an account so that you'll be ready to start shopping on October 1.  You can also sign up to receive email notifications as new information becomes available.

What does this mean for small businesses?  Most small businesses I know are exempt.  Employers must have 50 or more employees to be required to provide health insurance.  And that was recently moved back one year.  Small employers, that is businesses with 49 and fewer employees, may provide health insurance if they wish or have their employees buy insurance through the Marketplace exchanges.

Tennessee has chosen not to set up a state exchange or to modify Medicaid to accept low income individuals and families.  The Governor hasn't ruled out modifying Medicaid in the future, but as of right now, Medicaid in Tennessee won't be changing any rules to allow more low income people to apply for and receive insurance.  We'll have to wait and see what happens there.

This means that some low income individuals and families still won't be able to obtain insurance in Tennessee.  If an individual makes less than $11,500 ($23,840 for a family of 4) and is not eligible for Medicaid, then they can buy insurance on the Marketplace if they can afford it (I would assume that is doubtful) but they won't get any federal subsidies to pay for the premiums.  They will have to pay the full premium to receive insurance.  If you make too little to receive a subsidy for health insurance premiums but also don't quality for Medicaid, you won't have to pay a penalty for not having insurance.  You will be exempt from this penalty.  That's good news, I guess.

Another possibility for good news, I don't know if this will be true, is that people who were previously unable to obtain insurance because of preexisting conditions and had to pay very high premiums may now be able to buy insurance at a more affordable rate.  It still might be high, but might be lower than before.  We'll have to wait and see.

If an individual makes more than $11,500 ($23,840 for a family of 4) then they will receive a federal subsidy to buy health insurance and will have to pay a penalty if they don't buy any.

How much will this insurance actually cost?  No one knows.

Everything is is in a state of flux.  And just like Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid and all other Federal programs the state of flux is constant.  Hold on to your hats and tighten those seat belts.

New Information about Tennessee Unemployment

This information comes from an article I read in the Tennessee CPA Journal, the magazine published by the Tennessee Society of Certified Public Accountants.  It was written by Stacie Caraway with Miller & Martin PLLC in Chattanooga.

Ms. Caraway brings Tennessee employers up to date about the definition of "disqualifying misconduct" which was included in amendments to the unemployment benefit law.

Every employer with payroll pays into the unemployment pool to provide benefits for those who lose employment.  The fewer former employees who draw unemployment compensation on an employer's account, the lower the employer's percentage rate.  To put it another way, if no employee ever draws unemployment on your account, then your rate is as low as it can be to pay unemployment taxes.  If you have a lot of employees drawing unemployment on your account, then your rate will go as high as it can go.  That way employers who have more employees drawing unemployment pay more and employers who have few or no employees drawing unemployment, pay less.

Obviously, as an employer, you want to keep those who draw unemployment on your account to a minimum.  That means when you receive a letter informing you that a former employee wants to draw unemployment you have to fight the claim if you believe it is unreasonable.  It seems this has been made a bit easier to do now.

To show "qualifying misconduct", that is the reason the employee is no longer employed and why that cause means the employee doesn't get to receive unemployment, the employer has some guidelines.  These are as follows:

• Conscious disregard of the rights or interests of the employer (example: starting competing business on employer's time);
• Deliberate violations or disregard of reasonable standards of behavior that the employer expects of its employees ("deliberate" will require proof of notice via handbook);
• Carelessness or neglect of such a degree or recurrence as to show an intentional or substantial disregard of the employer's interests;
• Deliberate disregard of a written attendance policy and the discharge is in compliance with such policy;
• A knowing violation of a regulation of this state by an employee of an employer licensed by this state, which violation would cause the employer to be sanctioned or have the employer's license revoked or suspended by this state; or
• A violation of an employer's rule, unless the employee can demonstrate that he/she did not know, and couldn't not reasonably know, of the rule's requirements, or the rule is unlawful or not reasonably related to the job environment and performance.

Well, that's quite a bit.  What I noticed is that there seems to be a need for some sort of employee handbook.  If you're like many of my clients, not only don't you have a written employee handbook, you also don't have anyone to write it or anyone who knows what to put in it.  You don't have the money or desire to create a whole department to write a handbook and to keep it updated.  I guarantee you that once you have a handbook, you will need to update it from time to time.

Good news.  There are freelance employee handbook writers.  That's right just as you can hire a CPA when you need one and ignore him the rest of the time, you can also hire a Human Resource or HR department when you need one.  There are many small businesses that help other small businesses work better.  I know who they are.  If former employees who don't deserve to draw unemployment on your account are a problem, let me know by commenting on this blog entry and I will put you in touch with a small business HR department.  They will be happy to work with you to create a written employee handbook that will outline what is correct and proper to your employees.  And this will give you back up when trying to fight an unemployment claim.

If you want to read the entire article you can find the March/April edition of the Tennessee CPA Journal on the TSCPA web page.