What If My Employer Decides Not to Offer Insurance?

Q.

Our school superintendent says he plans to pay the fines rather than pay for insurance for every school employee. If employers choose to pay the fines, then how do the employees receive health insurance? — Annie Brown
A.
If your employer doesn’t offer coverage, you’d be able buy insurance on the health insurance exchanges that will start up in 2014. You’d also be eligible for premium subsidies if your income is less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level.

But some policy experts question whether, when push comes to shove, employers will actually drop health insurance coverage. For one thing, at a school that employs teachers who are under union contract, the superintendent can’t just make a unilateral decision to discontinue health coverage, said Jennifer Tolbert, an associate director at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

But even without a union contract, there are other factors that come into play. Under the new law, employers aren’t required to offer health insurance. But if they don’t and even one of their employees turns to the health insurance exchange for coverage, the employer would be subject to a $2,000 per employee penalty. Depending on the value of the health plan, paying the penalty might be cheaper than offering health insurance,  Ms. Tolbert said. But even if that were the case, “They’ll lose the tax deduction for providing insurance, and at the end of the day employees will leave outright or demand a higher salary because they’re losing a major benefit,” she said.

Have a question about the new health care law? Send it to health_feedback@nytimes.com.

Activists organize to demand universal health care

Health care activists from the Private Health Insurance Must Go! Coalition, in collaboration with Healthcare-NOW!, Physicians for a National Health Program (N.Y. Metro chapter) and Single Payer New York, gathered at St. Luke’s Hospital on April 24 to discuss moving forward in the fight for universal health care in the U.S.

Conference organizer and PHIMG Chair Ajamu Sankofa opened up the third annual teach-in and summit, asserting that “health care activists must develop an effective narrative showing that the current law cannot and will not work.” He raised the need to assess the current period, recognizing the pernicious impact of neoliberalism and privatization on society and the need to end the movement’s deferential treatment of the Democratic Party. “We need a movement like the civil rights movement,” he said, “to show that Medicare for all is not only fiscally responsible, but a moral imperative that saves lives and prevents pain and suffering.”

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