On Monday, officials from Health and Human Services, HHS, announced that they have delayed the implementation of an important provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It was announced that small businesses (2 – 50 employees) may not have an insurance exchange market set-up specifically for them when the state and federal health exchanges begin on January 1, 2014. As this time we believe that this will have little if any effect on the current small group market place.
Instead, the federal government announced that the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) will be delayed until 2015. Small business employees will still be able to get insurance, but the states have the option to limit that to one choice, rather than a variety of plans, for the first year. We have not heard how this might affect the California Exchange, Covered California.
The attached Legislative Brief and the following link will give you more details: Link to Latest Affordable Care Act Update
