Employers who do not offer insurance

If your employer doesn't offer insurance coverage, you will be able buy insurance on the health insurance exchanges that will start up in 2014. You would also be eligible for premium subsidies if your income is less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level. Some policy experts question whether employers will actually drop health insurance coverage. For one thing, if employees are under union contract, their employer can't just make a unilateral decision to discontinue health coverage. 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. Even if that were the case, they would 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.
New York Times
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