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It may take several years before anyone truly understands the ramifications of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — aka Obamacare — and related legislation. As a result, attorneys and accountants should see a boon, judging from a May 26 panel discussion hosted by the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce.
The discussion, aimed at helping local businesses understand their obligations under health care reform, brought out a few chuckles among the dozens of interested chamber members gathered for lunch at the Hyatt Regency Tampa hotel downtown. The bottom line for business owners, panelists say, will be finding the right balance between providing affordable coverage to employees while avoiding stiff federal fines.
“We call it the Accountants' Full Employment Act,” jokes Jose Valiente, principal of the Tampa office of LarsonAllen LLP. He noted that larger employers will eventually have to determine whether penalties would be less expensive than providing coverage for workers, or if it would be better to ramp up benefits after they become seriously ill since pre-existing conditions are covered under Obamacare.
Dan Farrar, president of Resource Innovations in Fort Myers, says thousands more pages of regulations are likely to be generated following the 2,000 or so that were initially signed into law by President Obama in March. Exchanges will be available at the state level, he says, yet employers still must attempt to offer benefits that are more affordable.
The penalties for failing to do so could be fierce, he says. For example, a company that allows any one employee to go out to the state exchange would have to pay $2,000 for every employee, with the first 30 workers being exempted. “If the law didn't have any teeth, nobody would comply,” Farrar says.
One name the audience was urged to become familiar with is that of Kathleen Sebelius, Obama's secretary of Health and Human Services, who will likely be in charge of making various changes to reform elements as they are implemented starting Sept. 23.
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