Today’s Wall Street Journal examines the inside scoop of Obamacare’s mandated provision where employers must offer health insurance coverage to their employees starting in 2014. Employer-sponsored insurance health premiums must not exceed 9.5% of the employee’s annual income. While employers are forced to offer a qualified health plan that offers bloated benefits, employees may choose not to participate. If so, these employees will have to pay a fine – but the penalty comes at a much cheaper cost.
For an employee earning $30,000 at Stay Green (a landscaping company in California), for instance, a 9.5% salary contribution to the premiums is $2,850 a year. But under the law, the 1% penalty for that same employee who forgoes health insurance is only $300 a year.
Read more about low-income workers’ opinions of the employer-mandate/individual mandate here.
