airspray wrote: I need to find current law on small business offering health insurance to employees. must all employees that receive a w-2 be offered health insurance if the officers are offered same? would like to see the federal code Thanks This is an interesting question, however I am unaware of any federal laws that require a small buisness to offer health care to their employee's. If there was such a code, I'd assume it would depend on their status (full time or part time). There might also be local state and county requirements you'll want to look into. Personally, I don't believe there is any standing federal law that requires employers to offer health insurance to their employees. Heck, that's the reason for the big health care reform bill they are working on, part of it is to require buisnesses to offer health insurance to their employees.

My bad. I meant to say If a small business wanted toprovide healthinsurance totheir salary employes is there a law that it also has to be offered to their hourly employees also? Was not inferring there was a law that said they had to provide insurance. Sorry

Here's the scenerio Mr x owns a small home construction companyHe has himself and 3 others as salary/office workersHe has 9 hourly paid carpenters/helpers He wants to offer the 4 salary people company paidhealth insurance as a benefit. Here's the question can he offer the salary employees this benefit without offeringsame to the hourly employees? And if he can't can anyone quote to me the law that states that he can't? Thanks in advance for your advice

Employee benefits are only for employees. You cannot give contractors health benefits or they might be considered employees by the IRS. Mr x will be working with an insurance person/company to get this in place. They are the best people to ask about this question.

Here are some resources from Business.gov and the Department of Labor on employer-provided health care plans: Employee Benefit Plans : What's Law and What's Optional Find It! By Topic : Health Benefit Plans Provides shortcuts to information and services the Department of Labor (DOL) offers employers and health plan practitioners. Understanding Your Fiduciary Responsibilities Under a Group Health Plan This booklet addresses the scope of ERISAs protections for private-sector group health plans.

President Obama has signed into law health reform legislation that brings down health care costs for American families and small businesses, expands coverage to millions of Americans and ends the worst practices of insurance companies. And it begins to do so this year. Find answers to Frequently Asked Questions that help small business owners understand how the new reform affects them. Learn more about how health care reform will benefit your small business, employees and their families: Six Ways Health Reform will Help Small Businesses Small Business Health Care Tax Credit Four Cases: Learn how four hypothetical businesses might benefit from the Small Business Health Care Tax credit under health care reform.

Thank you all for this conversation. Its going to be a lot easier to keep some longterm employees if the government is going to do what they say and help small business provide affordable healthcare for their employees. Hopefully that is true b/c it would be very helpful to overturn in my office. I was told the Obama changes wouldn't really be taking place until 2014...does this mean I would have to wait until 2014 to provide affordable healthcare to my employees? THanks Dr. Aaron Camarillo Chiropractor This message has been edited to remove links to commercial sites. Please vist our Community Best Practices to find out more about the advertising rules.

Actually there is a new law if I'm not mistaken. We were watching this issue closely after the election because we're a small business and that could have a major impact if we were required to offer health insurance to all employees, it would mean higher prices and less sales for us. Favors Depot is a supplier of wedding favors for brides world wide. These items are low cost and profit is minimal. Only volume sales product results. Higher prices equals lower volume. I personally think health insurance is great for all, but some of us just can't afford the options right now. ---This post was edited to remove a commercial link. Read our discussion policies for more Community best practices.

Weddingfavors - I'm not an expert in the law, but I did some research for you. According to WhiteHouse.gov, You will not be required to provide health insurance to your employees. If you choose to, new tax credits will make covering your employees more affordable, and you will also have access to a new insurance exchange to find the best deal for your business. Regarding the rules in 2014 - 'Starting in 2014, only large businesses who have employees receiving taxpayer-funded health assistance will pay an assessment to help offset the cost of those subsidies to the American taxpayer. Companies whose employees are receiving taxpayer assistance will have to pay $2,000 per full-time worker. (This is less than half of the annual cost of providing health insurance to a full-time worker today). A business is defined as large if it has more than 50 full-time equivalent workers, not counting seasonal workers. The first 30 workers would be subtracted from the total when calculating the total amount of the assessment. We estimate that fewer than 2 per cent of large businesses will be likely to pay these penalties. I hope this information is helpful.