{"id":24,"date":"2013-10-01T20:03:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-01T20:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/2013\/10\/01\/health-care-reform-is-here\/"},"modified":"2017-06-20T16:16:16","modified_gmt":"2017-06-20T16:16:16","slug":"health-care-reform-is-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/2013\/10\/01\/health-care-reform-is-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Health Care Reform is Here"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Janine Springer, Chief Financial Officer<\/p>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\">\nThe ball is rolling\u2026.October 1 and Health Care Reform is<br \/>\nhere!<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNoSpacing\">\nSitting in an Arkansas BlueCross Blue Shield small<br \/>\nemployer seminar a few weeks ago, the realization set in that the Affordable<br \/>\nCare Act (Obamacare) was being implemented and that the way businesses<br \/>\ncurrently buy health care insurance for either themselves or their employees<br \/>\nwill forever be changed.<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNoSpacing\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNoSpacing\">\nWhile I had been continually bombarded in the past few<br \/>\nyears and more recently in the past two months with notices and rulings via<br \/>\nemail along with numerous webinars and countless seminars regarding the<br \/>\nchanges, it was sitting in a room filled with other small group plans and<br \/>\nhearing the questions and concerns that they were voicing that it finally hit<br \/>\nme:&nbsp; good, bad or otherwise, the ball was<br \/>\nrolling!<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNoSpacing\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNoSpacing\">\nWhether or not you were pro or anti-Obamacare really<br \/>\ndoesn\u2019t matter.&nbsp; The bottom line is that<br \/>\nbusinesses need to get ready before January 1 and have a plan in place<br \/>\nregarding their employee (as well as their own) health care.&nbsp; There are so many pieces to this puzzle that<br \/>\nit would almost take someone with an advanced degree to figure out the<br \/>\ninformation, not the mention the amount of time spent reading, calculating<br \/>\ncosts, and issuing health care notices regarding the state exchanges. <\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNoSpacing\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNoSpacing\">\nHaving a grandfathered plan, my assumption was there<br \/>\nwould be less paperwork involved with the health care law.&nbsp; That is not the case.&nbsp; There are still forms and individual notices<br \/>\nto be filled out (and filled out correctly or big fines will be given!).&nbsp; I can only imagine the paperwork involved<br \/>\nwith a small business that has a large number of employees.&nbsp; <\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNoSpacing\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNoSpacing\">\nMy words of advice to small businesses not knowing what<br \/>\nto do or where to turn would be to ask other businesses what they are doing and<br \/>\nif they are working with a corporate benefits company.&nbsp; The chamber has several members on our<br \/>\nwebsite (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogerslowell.com\/\">www.rogerslowell.com<\/a>) that<br \/>\ncan help you make this transition as smooth as possible.&nbsp; <\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNoSpacing\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNoSpacing\">\nSomething I have remembered from my business law class in<br \/>\ncollege&#8230;\u201dignorance of the law is no excuse.\u201d<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNoSpacing\">\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNoSpacing\">\nSo get ready, because the ball is rolling and Health Care<br \/>\nReform is here.<\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNoSpacing\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Janine Springer, Chief Financial Officer The ball is rolling\u2026.October 1 and Health Care Reform is here! Sitting in an Arkansas BlueCross Blue Shield small employer seminar a few weeks ago, the realization set in that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was being implemented and that the way businesses currently buy health care insurance for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chambernews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8RhO8-o","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127,"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions\/127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}