America's Benefit Specialist October 2022

THE FAMILY GLITCH

$45 billion over 10 years, with an estimat ed 190,000 previously uninsured people gaining coverage. Employers that choose to play and offer affordable coverage to their eligible employ ees... STAY TUNED! Scott Stevens is an employee

impacted employee. And the fine amounts have increased every year since this aspect of the ACA went into effect! The family glitch fix seeks to add to the affordability test the cost of coverage for employees AND their eligible dependents. And the cost of family coverage is decid edly higher than employee-only coverage. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the annual average cost of employee-only and employee/family coverage in 2021 was $7,739 and $22,221, respectively. As you can imagine, taking into account the affordabil ity of employer-offered health insurance for an entire family will have a significant impact on the cost of coverage to employers. Details associated with the family glitch fix are expected any time, and could possi bly become effective January 1, adding to the challenges of annual open enrollment. A final thought: According to the Con gressional Budget Office, the estimated taxpayer cost of fixing the family glitch is

Now let’s look at the family glitch. Under current ACA guidelines, employers subject to the employer mandate (generally those with 50+ employees) face a veritable “pay or play” decision. They must decide whether to pay the associated fine for NOT offering health insurance at all (pay a penalty of $2,750 per full-time employee starting with the 31st one) or offer coverage that meets both an affordability and minimum value test (play). This is where the family glitch comes into play. Presently, only the cost of employ ee-only coverage is calculated to determine affordability. Affordability is tied to income and, for the current year (2022), the ceiling is 9.61% of household income (9.83% in ‘21 and 9.78% in ‘20). So an employee whose portion of the cost of employer coverage exceeds the calendar-year affordability threshold is technically eligible for ACA subsidies. If the employee chooses this option, the employer is faced with an increasing fine amount, which for 2022 is $4,120 for each

benefits and consumer-di rected healthcare specialist, helping employer organiza tions of all types reduce their health insurance and related employee benefits

costs. His career has included stints as vice president of sales/marketing for a national insurance company, co-founder and executive vice president of a TPA and founder of The HSA Toolkit (employer/employee education and sales system). Scott earned a B.S. in marketing/economics from the State University of New York at Oswego.

BENCHMARKING

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KEY REGIONAL FINDINGS

ROADBLOCKS TO HIRING When asked “What are factors that have kept you from successfully filling positions?” respondents overwhelmingly reported that candidates are not responding to applica tions (62%), and candidates are asking for a wage higher than feasible for the position (63%). This, combined with candidates being unqualified for the position (49%), has forced employers to continually think outside the box when it comes to sourcing qualified candidates for positions.

Arwyn Robinson is the director of marketing for Advanced Benefits. She has been with the company since 2013. She is a Certified Self-Funded Specialist, holds her SHRM-CP and earned a

bachelor’s degree in business administration. When not at work, she enjoys traveling the globe with her husband and playing with her Golden Doodle, Maverick.

14 ABS | benefitspecialistmagazine.com