Healthcare benefits are the most popular benefits for employees. Employers must offer different types of benefits to stay competitive in the market. It allows them to attract the most talented employees. However, it depends on whether other employers from the same industry and field also offer healthcare insurance policies for their employees. Furthermore, offering employees healthcare benefits also helps employers avoid penalties imposed by the healthcare reforms in the United States. For instance, in Hawaii, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires employers with more than fifty employees to offer adequate healthcare coverage. The fifty employees include a combination of both full-time and part-time workers.
Another reason why an employee must offer healthcare benefits to his employees lies in the fact that the employers themselves can get less expensive health insurance policies (Summers, 1989). Moreover, they are given tax breaks on the contributions the employers make towards the health insurance of their workers. Any business with less than twenty-five workers is eligible for tax credits if they buy employees healthcare insurance. The employers also enjoy other tax gain advantages when they increase their contribution package. Moreover, self-employed individuals can enjoy a hundred per cent of their healthcare insurance premiums as business expenses and, thus, have to pay no taxes on them. Similarly, all of the insurance costs of the employers and the employees are deductible if the business is incorporated.
Employees’ group purchasing power must be offered even if the employer does not contribute anything towards the healthcare insurance of their workers. For instance, a small business may purchase insurance from the Small Business Health Options Program – a government-run insurance marketplace. Most importantly, employers must ensure the wellness of their workers and, thus, must offer healthcare insurance to them (Pronk, 2014).
Works Cited
Summers, Lawrence H. “Some simple economics of mandated benefits.” The American Economic Review 79.2 (1989): 177-183.
Pronk, Nicolaas P. “Placing workplace wellness in proper context: value beyond money.” Preventing chronic disease 11 (2014).
