While employee benefits may have largely been unaffected by the fallout resulting from the flawed rollout of the Affordable Care Act, they could be the next cancelations felt by millions of people for not adhering to the requirements of the currently existing health reform law.
It's estimated that between 80 and 93 million individuals whose health insurance is employer-based could receive a cancelation notice, informing them that their plans have been discontinued for failure to meet the standards of the ACA, according to a new study released by conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute.
The AEI's Stan Veuger indicated that there are nearly 160 million people in the U.S. who get their health insurance through their workplace. A worst-case scenario would be approximately half of those individuals seeing their plans scrapped, which could begin as soon as 2014.
He added that in order to achieve HR compliance with the law, policies would have to include specific coverages that all individuals don't need, but are nonetheless required under the 10 essential benefits provision.
"Things like maternity care or acupuncture or extensive drug coverage," Veuger told FoxNews.com. "And so now the law is going to force them to buy policies that they could have gotten in the past if they wanted to but they chose not to."
The National Federation of Independent Business is one of several trade groups opposed to the implementation of the ACA, mainly because of the adverse effect it's perceived to have on entrepreneurs. Also in opposition to the reform law is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The U.S. Chamber has come out in support of several alternative pieces of legislation that would amend the ACA, including one that would change the ACA's definition of "full-time" employee from working at least 30 hours per week to 40 hours or more.
