Small business health insurance and avoiding the tax for not having insurance

I'm hoping there is someone here who is knowledgeable on this subject. According to healthcare.gov any employer sponsored insurance plan will meet the requirement to avoid paying the tax for failing to carry "adequate" health insurance. For employers with less than 50 employees, there is no requirement to offer a health insurance plan. Given this, could small employers not offer some sort of catastrophic coverage plan that would not normally qualify for minimum coverage if purchased by an individual or large employer? And would this really protect the employees from the tax as stated on the government's website?

From what I can tell, most employees can get coverage just about as cheap if not cheaper independently than we can offer through a group plan. My thought is offering a catastrophic coverage plan would ensure all employees are protected against, well, a medical catastroph, and those that desire more coverage could purchase it on their own.

robert123 said:

I'm hoping there is someone here who is knowledgeable on this subject. According to healthcare.gov any employer sponsored insurance plan will meet the requirement to avoid paying the tax for failing to carry "adequate" health insurance. For employers with less than 50 employees, there is no requirement to offer a health insurance plan. Given this, could small employers not offer some sort of catastrophic coverage plan that would not normally qualify for minimum coverage if purchased by an individual or large employer? And would this really protect the employees from the tax as stated on the government's website?

From what I can tell, most employees can get coverage just about as cheap if not cheaper independently than we can offer through a group plan. My thought is offering a catastrophic coverage plan would ensure all employees are protected against, well, a medical catastroph, and those that desire more coverage could purchase it on their own.

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Good luck finding a catastrophic coverage group plan. The insurance companies read the same text, and it is not in their interest to offer one.


dee
;-D

dcsipo said:

Good luck finding a catastrophic coverage group plan. The insurance companies read the same text, and it is not in their interest to offer one.


dee
;-D

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Why not? Could they not price it even higher? I would assume it would not have to meet the min 80% of premiums used for health care expenses required for Obamacare plans.

I've been looking to self insure my one person shop. I cannot locate anyone who will offer stop loss insurance (catastrophic). Let me know if you find one.

Warning rant below.....

I hate insurance companies. I figure if my time is worth the $60 an hour it takes to run my shop, I spent around $1500 on the phone along figuring out this crappy policy that changed after I purchased it on the exchanged without notification.

I would say what I paid but I don't have the facts in front of me. All I know is I had the short end of the deal for sure.

The kicker is that I had an abdominal pain and wham they put me on CAT scan machine to figure it out. So I was on the approximate $200,000 machine for 15 minutes with two people making probably $20/hr and lets say a dr. spent a half hour making the report. My bill was $6,500.

All I want is a package that kicks in at say $20K and nothing until then. I'll deal with the day to day costs i.e. simple illnesses, stiches and snapped bones...

I also want the health care system regulated as of now, its monopolistic in nature because you have no choice. Just recently all nurses at Hillcrest received a $2 hr raise because Cleveland clinic was taking them left and right. Who pays for this? Instead of the rat race to the bottom we face, they are just handing out money and it comes from our pocket.

NO non-compliant plans can be offered. Period.

Those such as car2 (and myself) who have "grandfathered" plans can't change those plans without losing our grandfathered status. Heck, I can't even change the portion I pay of my employees plans with losing the grandfathered status. Switching to the lowest level ACA compliant plan would slightly more than double my health insurance cost and that doesn't even count all the extra out of pocket costs that I would have to pay.