Affordable Care Act: Anything but Affordable
The Affordable Care Act is a piece of legislation that aims to extend healthcare coverage to millions of Americans. This bill has divided the nation and in some circles discussions end in bitter arguments.
Those that support the bill feel it is the nation’s moral duty to grant everybody coverage, and many of those that oppose the bill are alarmed at the fiscal implications it brings. The Affordable Care Act was summarized by Avik Roy as follows:
Some will be signed up for Medicaid and consigned to a lifetime of poor health care. Some will gain access to the subsidized exchanges, but will find it harder to gain employment as a result. And those who already have insurance, and are being …show more content…

Over the next year and a half their costs soared to $2,500 per month for the employee, and an additional $2,500 from the employer (Chartier). The business and the employees, unable to cover these additional expenses were forced to downgrade their coverage to a plan that was in their price range. This downgrade ends up costing the employee more in the long run since they are now left paying out of pocket on expenses that are above their coverage limit or are no longer covered by insurance at all.
The company in question is below the 50 employee limit, so they are not required to offer health insurance; because of this the employer is considering dropping the health insurance from its employees’ benefits. If the company does decide to drop coverage it would be beneficial if they remained below the 50 employee limit, because of this the employer has decided not to expand until they can be certain the new law wouldn’t crush them under its requirements (Chartier).
A number of small businesses that normally get overlooked are franchises. While they have the name recognition of a large corporation, they are usually owned and operated by local people. Under the ACA a franchisee that owns multiple locations will have their employees pooled and if it totals over 50 they would be required to offer health insurance. “In the U.S., more than half of all franchise outlets