Job-Based Health Coverage and the Affordable Care Act: Why the Law Won’t Cause Employers to Drop Coverage

If you’re wondering how the Affordable Care Act will affect businesses that offer health insurance to their employees, you’ll want to read this fact sheet full of data that demonstrate how businesses that offer insurance will continue to do so, and those that don’t soon will  out of a sense of integrity and a desire to keep their employees happy.

Under the Affordable Care Act, businesses with 50 or more employees are required to offer health insurance to their workers. If they refuse, they may face a penalty. Opponents of the law claim that employers would rather pay the penalty and leave their employees to buy health insurance on their own. But this isn’t the case, as it’s both smart and affordable for employers to offer job-based coverage.

Recent studies found that most businesses (98 percent of businesses with 200 or more workers, 94 percent of businesses with 50-199 workers) offered health insurance to their employees. Employers have made it clear that they are unlikely to stop offering coverage due to the health care law.

Offering insurance to workers is in employers’ best interest because it keeps employees healthy and satisfied. Find out who the burden shifts to if employers refuse and how the Affordable Care Act will help small business offer coverage.