

Obamacare’s impact on our startup and what to do to avoid rate hikes - techtime77
http://www.distilnetworks.com/lesson-learned-obamacares-impact-startup-avoid-rate-hikes/

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warfangle
Not to the OP, but if the author or someone from distilnetworks.com reads
this: you probably shouldn't have a customer service bot proactively try and
chat with people who are just reading your blog.

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ressaid1
I really appreciate the note. It is an actual person, not a bot that chats
with each user but I actually agree with your perspective. It can be seen as
intrusive. As the CEO, I'm making the executive decision to take the chat
feature off the blog today. Thanks for helping improve our user experience!

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coolsunglasses
I'm very glad you're making the executive decision as the CEO to remove the
chat feature off the blog as opposed to just doing it.

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ressaid1
Hah. Its not that simple to just pull off. The js code snippet is part of the
theme and so we have to restructure several things to selectively place it on
certain pages and not others. As a developer I hate having interrupts come in
so I dont do that to my guys. We put it in the queue, it'll get done this
week.

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KyleSanderson
I was under the impression you were exempt if you have under 50 employees. I
don't know how this effects traditional startups.

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elgabogringo
I think staying under 50 employees means you are exempt from being forced to
offer insurance to full time employees (those with over 30 hours a week and/or
salaried.) However, if you are offering health insurance - and most startups
would be, then you are affected by the changes to private insurance.

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ressaid1
Thats exactly right. ACA doesnt force you to offer insurance, but if you do
your rates are likely to go up as a startup.

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jbooth
* If you're a startup that mostly employs 20-something males.

It's nothing to do with being a startup and everything to do with
demographics.

Additionally, for really small startups that don't have a giant pile of
capital or enough people for a group plan, the healthcare exchanges make
insurance "possible" instead of "better hope you're married and the spouse can
do family plan".

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donjigweed
Yes, if you are on the younger end of the spectrum, your premiums are likely
to go up. If you are on the older end of the spectrum your premiums are likely
to go down, or at least, you're now able to afford insurance. If you own a
company in an industry that employs people on the younger end of the spectrum,
yes, you might be paying a bit more so that your employees can afford
healthcare in their later years. Previously your costs were artificially low.

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samworm
"Now, you can still do some of those tricks, but not as extensively." The
language in this blog post make it pretty clear that this isn't a company you
want to work for. Stop trying to nickel and dime your employees. Provide good
affordable health care for everyone from the CEO down to the cleaner. Be a
socially responsible entity. Make that one of the pillars of your business.
Success without it isn't success at all.

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ScottWhigham
I didn't get that at all. I think you're bringing some bias to it - I can't
wrap my head around how else you would have come away with that sentiment.
Either that or you didn't really read it. Let me do the whole paragraph:

 _In the past, you could sometimes defer some of your healthcare costs by
offering only high-deductible plans. You could offer policy choices with
higher copays. You could even incentivize employees to drop coverage
altogether._

Is any of that untrue, or bad for a company to do? Absolutely not. If I say to
an employee, "Which would you rather have - a $70,000 salary with a $5,000
deductible health plan, or a $60,000 salary with a no deductible plan?", which
one will they choose? Hell if I know in advance - that's up to each employee.
I've offered them the same basic thing and let them choose what fits them the
best. I fail to see how that's "bad".

Get off your high horse.

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BillyJoel1212
After historically being handcuffed with limited options, it's good to see
small companies taking a proactive approach to an evolving health insurance
marketplace.

