By Gabriel Rom
The Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, weighed nine pounds when it passed Congress. For small and medium-sized businesses, that’s a dizzying amount of new regulations and potential pitfalls.
On Monday, The Queens Chamber of Commerce held a conference at Plaza College Monday to help Queens business leaders navigate their way through the act, which Thomas Grech, the chamber’s executive director, called “the most sweeping change to the U.S. medical field in over 50 years.”
“We designed this conference to help businesses become compliant, stay compliant and avoid ACA penalties,” Queens Chamber President Al Pennisi said. “It sounds simple, but it’s far from simple.”
The burdens on employers to cover their employees’ insurance have, in short, increased dramatically. The ACA has an employer mandate and employer penalties that were set to begin in 2014, but due to the ACA’s complexity, those provisions and penalties will actually kick in only in 2015-2016. It’s these penalties that especially worry businesses.
“I hear anecdotes all the time about the ACA from folks that have anywhere from a hundred to 3,000 employees who just don’t get this ACA ‘stuff,” Grech added.
Amid the concern, Jeremy Boal, executive vice president and chief medical officer for the Mount Sinai Health System, sought to address the notion that the ACA will present one giant headache to business owners. The primary goal of the ACA, Boal said, was not to saddle businesses with more red tape, but to increase coverage for those who cannot afford it.
“Most of you recognize that the public is increasingly confused and negative about the ACA, despite all the potential benefits,” Boal said in the event’s keynote speech.
To give a sense of how dramatically the ACA will alter health insurance in Queens, Boal said in New York state there are a million new covered lives, half of which are in New York City. In Queens about 170,000 people now have insurance who did not have it before, while 300,000 are still uninsured.
“In Queens, things are going to get much more interesting for employers over the next three to five years,” Boal said. “Businesses will have the choice about whether they will continue to provide coverage for their employees or move to the exchange, and there is no right answer at this point. It depends on the situation you’re in.”
As the conference broke into various smaller working groups and seminars, the minutiae details of the act and their implications were discussed in detail, from what employers are required to offer, to their insurance choices, to the penalties they may face.
While there were plenty of questions and some passionate back-and-forths, the event spurred a dialogue that organizers believe is much needed.
“The Chamber decided to organize this event for our Queens-based members, their employees and others in the metropolitan area to keep them educated on the ACA and we’re going to keep doing this until we all understand exactly what we’re dealing with,” Pennisi said.
Reach reporter Gabriel Rom by e-mail at grom@
