This is from
Liza Zamosky at the L.A. Times:
... 70% of California’s small firms that offer employee health insurance — haven’t yet faced all the sweeping changes that resulted from the Affordable Care Act.
The government gave them extra time to sign onto Obamacare, and instead they took advantage of provisions that allowed them to stay put with their old policies. [This is referred to as 'grandmothering' a healthplan.] ...
In California, ... that grandmothering ends December 2015, so a lot of the companies that have avoided the rate changes due to the legislation will be facing that this year....
When the Santa Monica e-commerce company ZipfWorks switched last year to a policy that complied with the health reform law, the small firm’s insurance premiums for its 18 full-time employees rose nearly 30%....
I suspect we'll hear many more stories like this as the year moves on. I have one smaller client facing a 40% renewal right now and after scouring the market, their only substantially better option represents a 20% increase with a lesser plan and smaller provider network. They like their plan, and they can't keep it.
