Small employers who do not or can not offer health insurance to their employees, is a big problem. That’s why this week’s focus is on helping your employees with health insurance.

I’ve been focusing a lot the past few weeks on Marketplace and its subsidies. A lot of small business owners do not for obvious reasons, offer health insurance to their employees. This is most often because it’s very expensive. This is large because as an employer, they do have to cover 50% of the costs to offer traditional health insurance. Sometimes, this is just more than what they can afford to do. One of the services I offer is helping those employers make sure their employees have coverage.

There are many options we can discuss and work with – some pertaining to the employees and some pertaining to the employer. As an employee, if your employer is not offering you benefits, the first thing I check for is whether you qualify for a subsidy on the Marketplace. If you do, this is also a win for the employer. It allows their employee to have coverage but is not costing them anything. It also allows the employees to be saving money on their premiums, as well as – oftentimes- having more coverage benefits.

There are also some creative options that I can assist with for small business employers.  Usually, these options would be in the form of supplemental coverage to complement and fill in gaps that may exist on their Marketplace subsidies or major medical insurance plans that their employees may be on. There are options for the employer to offer basic primary care visits without having to meet a deductible. If the employee becomes sick on a Marketplace plan, there are some benefits we can put in place that are very affordable, very reasonable, and completely customizable based on the demographics of the employer and the employees.

My role is to assist with coordinating all these options. I will sit down with the employer, learn about their business, and their employee base. I discuss if they are having any trouble keeping employees, getting employees, and the overall financial situation as far as being able to offer benefits and what they want to offer.

After this initial consultation, I come up with a proposal of options that I present to the employer. A big benefit to this process is that it assists the employer in being able to offer benefits that they may have not been able to offer, or that they thought they may not have been able to offer. And it’s great for the employees because now they’re getting health care benefits, whether it’s through the employer or through the Marketplace.

In summary, the initial conversation is the starting point. If you’re a small business owner and would like to discuss options to begin offering your employees benefits, you can schedule a time to chat with me on my website, www.jkappconsulting.com/, and we will begin the process.