Obamacare Pros and Cons

Obamacare Pros and Cons

Several pros and cons for Obamacare impact you differently depending on how you purchase your health insurance and who you are. Here are some common Obamacare pros and cons for individuals and families as well as small businesses.

Obamacare Pros and Cons affecting Individuals and Families

The Affordable Care Act has some of the following pros and cons for the individual and family.

Obamacare Pros – individual and family

• You can no longer can be denied health insurance if you have pre-existing conditions
• Premium tax credits help make Individual Health Insurance more affordable.
• Covering Essential Health Benefits is now required.
• Medicaid eligibility is expanding in many states.
• Health insurance is starting to become more transparent.

Obamacare Cons- Individual and family

Individual Mandate – This means if you don’t qualify for an exemption and do not have health coverage you will pay a tax penalty.

• Now you can “only” sign up for individual healthcare insurance “during a specific enrollment period.”

Obamacare Pros and Cons – Small Business

The Affordable Care Act has some of the following pros and cons for small businesses.

Obamacare Pros – Small Businesses

• As a small business, you “DO NOT” have to offer Health Insurance as long as you have fewer than 50 full time employees.  There are no requirements that you must offer health insurance. The “Employer Mandate” does not apply to the small business. Small businesses often find better solutions to group health insurance such as reimbursements for individual health insurance.
• Small Businesses are starting to transition employees to individual health insurance then contribute to their premium expenses as opposed to offering a group health insurance plan.
• While contributing to insurance premiums through and arrangement will not meet or satisfy the “Employer Mandate” you must keep in mind that this does not apply to small businesses with less than 50 full time employees

Obamacare Cons – Small Businesses 

• The ACA “Affordable Care Act” is contributing to the higher costs for Group Health Insurance. New Obamacare increases in taxes and fees are the reason for the increased cost involving small group health insurance plans.
• SHOP Marketplace for Small Businesses may have seemed attractive at first it still doesn’t address some of the core problems small business have for group health insurance. Items like overall cost, instability and participation requirements. Then there have been technical glitches causing delays and inflexible rules causing most small businesses to skip over the shop.
• New requirements for Compliance and Reporting now must be managed causing more time and money for a small business each year to maintain this compliance.