Affordable Care Act – Where do small employers go from here?Options to consider when choosing your company’s employee benefitsWe are well into implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the impact of this legislation is being felt by many small employers.First employers must determine if they qualify as small (fewer than 50 employees). This is not as simple as it seems. An employer may have 48 employees working 30 hours or more and conclude they are a small employer. Yet if they have 10 employees working part time, less than 30 hours per week, these part-time employees must be translated to full-time equivalent employees.Because each of these part-time employees equates to half a full-time employee, this particular employer has five additional full-time employees, or the equivalent of 53 full-time and full-time equivalent employees. This company actually qualifies as a large employer and must follow the regulations applying to large employers.That being clarified, the next question a small employer will ask is whether they continue to offer coverage – can their business afford it? What happens if they do not offer coverage – will they still be able to attract and retain top talent? These are difficult questions with various outcomes depending on the employer’s decision.If the employer opts to continue offering coverage, next they must consider their options. Do they offer benefits on the Small Business Health Options Program, or SHOP, the federal exchange? As of now employers are able to offer only one plan option on the SHOP, and employees can only be enrolled on paper. (In 2015 it is expected that enrollment will be available online.)Medical plans offered on the SHOP also must be offered outside the program. So what are the benefits?Small employers who opt to enroll employers via the SHOP may qualify for the small business tax credit, which is not available outside the SHOP marketplace. To be eligible, an employer must cover 50 percent of the employee-only cost and have fewer than 25 full-time employees, including equivalents, and employee wages must average less than $50,000 per year.Another benefit of the SHOP is that full-time employees are defined as those working 30 or more hours per week. Outside the SHOP, under New Jersey law, full-time employees are defined as those working 25 or more hours per week.Another area of questions for small employers are private exchanges and using defined contributions.Private Exchanges are similar to the SHOP except the employer can offer up to six different plan options that the employee can chose from, depending on what best fits his or her needs. Defined contributions are a fixed dollar amount (a “defined contribution”) provided by the company that the employee chooses how to spend.Choosing a private exchange in conjunction with a defined contribution approach seems to be the wave of the future. With traditional employer-sponsored health plans, employers are building their benefits around a certain plan chosen by the employer. With a defined contribution approach the employer builds their benefits around a set dollar amount. This allows employers to predict what their health benefits costs will be.With a defined contribution employees are giving a virtual “gift card” with a set amount of money on it that they may use to shop for their own insurance from among the employer-provided multiple benefit options. It is a win/win for all. The employer can set their budget and the employee has multiple options from which to choose.In 2014 most employers are choosing to stay with the private carriers since they offer more plan options. In addition, some employers are getting their premiums reduced by as much as 45 percent because the plans they had were very rich and the carriers are eliminating many plan options. Before ACA took effect carriers might have offered 30 plans to employers. Now they might only offer 10. On the other hand, [premium increases at] renewal have gone as high as 88 percent.
Author Archives: admin
Challenge the Establishment – Dispelling Five Common Health and Fitness Misconceptions
In life we take many things for granted. People are told to go on a low fat diet and do some aerobic training, and yet they still gain body fat. Your blood work shows slightly altered cholesterol and thyroid levels and right away you’re told to go on medication. The trainer at your local gym rips out a copy of Everyday Stretches (reproduced from a 1987 poster) and says: “Do this before your next workout.”If you’ve been spinning your wheels and going nowhere in your pursuit for optimal health and fitness, then stop! Doing something simply because you’ve been told to is not good enough. It’s time to question authority and challenge the establishment!Let’s start by dispelling five common health and fitness misconceptions. Dare I suggest that…1) A high fat intake can actually lower body fat! Two reasons: a) If low fat is consumed, your body retains body fat as a protective/survival mechanism, and b) a high fat intake upregulates key (lipase) enzymes, which not only break down dietary fat but also body fat. Of course, a high fat and high carb diet will result in body fat accumulation so this only applies to a low carbohydrate intake.2) Reduced thyroid levels (i.e. TSH levels above 5) for a lean individual following a low-carb diet may be normal and healthy! Now before you throw your chair at the computer, hear me out. As Dr. Ron Rosedale notes, reduced thyroid levels are not necessarily synonymous with hypothyroidism. The body chooses to lower thyroid hormones due to an increased efficiency of energy use and hormonal signaling. It is yet another example of how the body adapts and should not be viewed as abnormal. The knee-jerk reaction in many cases would be thyroid medication which could potentially decrease lifespan.3) Low cholesterol levels will promote aging. Cholesterol is the raw material for many hormones – lower cholesterol and you lower hormone production… and if you lower hormone production, you increase aging! To make matters worse, low cholesterol has been associated with a broad complex of emotional, cognitive and behavioral symptoms including aggressiveness, hostility, irritability, paranoia, and severe depression. There is an increase in deaths from trauma, cancer, stroke, and respiratory and infectious diseases among those with low cholesterol levels. Furthermore, a study in the British medical journal, Lancet, indicates that elderly men die earlier with low blood cholesterol levels.4) Aerobic training can increase body fat. Specifically, long distance, low intensity, rhythmic-type aerobics done for a long duration/distance on a frequent basis can signal the body to store fat. Your body prefers fat for fuel at lower intensities. It adapts to aerobic activity by storing fat (usually in the hips and thighs) to become more efficient for future use. The more fat you store, the more you can use. Furthermore, aerobics are associated with increased cortisol levels without a concomitant increase in testosterone (as occurs during strength training) disrupting an optimal testosterone:cortisol ratio. In fact, average testosterone levels are significantly lower in endurance athletes. This, of course, equates to a decrease in muscle and strength along with an increase in (android) body fat, i.e., midsection fat.5) Static stretching will make you weak. This has been well documented in the literature, and yet a typical warm-up usually contains some form of (you guessed it) static stretching. The classic Bob Anderson style of stretching before exercise tends to sedate muscles, and research shows that it will decrease power and strength by as much as 30% for up to 90 minutes. By that time, your workout is over!Sometimes you need to take a sledgehammer and crush what’s written in stone! We’ve been told to reduce fat in our diets, lower our cholesterol levels, improve reduced thyroid production with medication, perform aerobic training almost daily, and definitely start each workout with some static stretching.Dare I suggest otherwise?You better believe it!
Digital Photography Tips – Choosing Your First Digital SLR Camera
You’ve been using point and shoot cameras and decided you’re ready for more control. You’re ready to buy a digital SLR camera. Great…Or maybe not. At this stage you know you want a digital SLR camera, the challenge is deciding just which one to buy!Entry level dSLRs are real digital SLR cameras. The quality of the images is better than anything you can get in a camera on your cell phone. This is due to the combination of superior lenses, image capture sensors and image processing systems.There are so many entry level cameras to choose from, it can feel totally bewildering. To give you a helping hand, we’ve looked at a number of different websites to put together some of the best digital SLR buys we can find in a variety of different categories. We also know that this is a highly competitive field and that many retailers have “won’t be beaten on price” policies so do feel free to check different suppliers and visit some review websites as you may get yourself a bargain deal.If you’re buying your first digital SLR and feel challenged – or even intimidated – by the complexity, don’t worry, most cameras come with a pretty sophisticated auto mode which will allow you to get started as smoothly as possible.Just to reassure you, there’s an explanation of some of the technical terms in a related article so, if there’s something you don’t understand as you’re reading through, just see if it’s in the glossary of “Digital Photography Tips – Understanding the Jargon”.An essential part of the digital SLR camera is the lens. Lenses are interchangeable, but only within the same brand make. So once you’ve chosen your brand you can only work within their range – but the choices are many. Canon and Nikon have the widest ranges of different lenses available but other brands are expanding their ranges too.If you’re buying your first dSLR, you’re more likely to buy it as part of a kit, so don’t forget to check out the lens on offer too – different retailers may package the camera body with different lenses so pick one which suits you best.The Canon EOS Rebel T1i consistently rates highly for it’s ease of use. As you become more confident you can begin to try using more features, adjusting the aperture, depth of focus or focal points – and because the results are digital, you can see the effects of your changes almost immediately!As you have more money to invest or more commitment to the photographic art form, you do get more sophisticated features on your camera. You capture more megapixels, up to 18 megapixels on the Canon T2i, but this is more than most new photographers need.In more expensive cameras, digital sensors get better and speeds get faster. The shutter speed on the Nikon D3000 is really impressive and eliminates that annoying shutter lag that can sometimes mean that all you see of your subject is a blur as they move out of shot.The ISO range of a camera often increases in more expensive cameras allowing you to take pictures in a much wider range of lighting conditions. The Pentax K-x is one example of an excellent value digital SLR that has a really impressive performance in low lighting conditions. If you have a bigger budget available, the Canon EOS Rebel T2i provides equally great low light performance and stunning 18 megapixel capacity.The LED live view screen is one really useful feature on most digital SLRs. A traditional SLR camera views the subject through the eyepiece when the camera is physically held to your eye which has its limitations. Having a large LED screen makes it much easier to see your composition of the shot from a wide variety of angles, not just with the camera held to your eye. One possible problem when working outdoors is glare on the screen making good anti-glare coating essential. The Nikon D5000 overcomes this problem by having a vari-angle color LED screen which can be adjusted to optimise your viewing.So in summary, whether any feature is worth paying for depends very much on how likely you are to use the feature in the first place. Begin by looking at the shots you want to take, the style and skills you want to learn. Don’t be tempted to buy more than you need if it means over stretching your budget.Do have fun and, whatever camera you choose, go out and use it!