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The MBA – Your Benefits Solution

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Amid the mess of the public health exchange rollout, there has been another very real blow to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — the growing number of delays.

Since its inception, provisions of the new health-care law have been delayed at least 29 times. And, of these 29 delays to the law, 14 have been set to last at least one year. One of those changes, announced in early February, allows smaller companies to skirt the mandate to provide health care until 2016. Specifically, businesses with more than 50 employees but fewer than 100 will have an extra year to phase in health-care coverage of employees who work more than 30 hours a week.

Employers with more than 100 employees will be subject to employee-coverage rules under the ACA beginning in January 2015. The mandate to provide insurance had already been delayed one year.

Experts say this constant stream of changes continues to create angst for employers already nervous about the costs of complying with the law — a law that the majority of business owners want repealed.

“One of the biggest struggles of implementation of ACA is that everybody feels like they are trying to hit a moving target,” explains Lorin Lacy, principal at Buck Consultants, a global HR consulting firm, “and trying to meet those targets in the law is a huge frustration to employers of all sizes.”

“This newest round of delays, for instance, gives a little bit more time in the 50-100 employee category,” he continues continues. “But, as with every positive, it creates more confusion and complications.”

In response to these challenges, the Manufacturer & Business Association (MBA) has been working diligently over the past year and a half to assist its members with navigating the provisions impacting their operations.

The MBA has held ongoing briefings to discuss changes in the law and provided updates to its members as information came available. Most recently, the MBA held focus groups with select member companies of various sizes to hear their needs and concerns, and what they would want most from a private health marketplace established through the Association.

“All the employers were very receptive to the idea and looking for a private exchange that would provide them cost-competitive arrangements,” said Lacy. “They wanted a resource that would help with the clerical work, a system that would work for them with quoting, and be more streamlined than what the public exchanges could offer.”

Introducing the MBA’s Benefits Solution. Starting this July, the Association’s new resource is a private marketplace with a select group of carriers that will offer ACAcompliant solutions for Association member companies and their employees.

“Member companies are not in the business of benefits,” says Lacy, “so the goal of the MBA marketplace is to make things easier for them, be cost-competitive, and get rid of the burden of complying with ACA, since they will automatically comply.”

Read more in the May 2014 edition of the Business Magazine.