Weathering reform

In February, the government responded to pressure from various business groups by delaying the Affordable Care Act’s mandate for companies to offer their employees insurance or face penalties for not complying. That latest delay gives businesses that have between 50 and 99 employees until January 2016 to begin offering insurance or to pay the penalties. Some businesses have simply begun making cuts to get under that 50-employee mark to be excused from these mandates. For larger companies that’s not an option. Beginning in 2015, employers with 100 or more full-time employees who do not offer affordable health insurance may be required to pay an assessment.

“We currently employ about 300 people so the Affordable Care Act will potentially have a huge impact on us,” says Chris Lee, president of EarthWorks in Lillian, Texas. “But the most frustrating thing for us is that we can’t get a straight answer from anyone about how it will work or what it will cost. We have estimates ranging from $150,000 to $500,000. At this point our insurance agent is feeling fairly optimistic that we can be compliant for closer to $150,000 but it’s not firm. That makes planning and budgeting very difficult.”

Tackling the uncertainty.

There has been a lot of uncertainty when it comes to the exact mandates of the ACA, as well as the potential costs associated with it. For a long time, that uncertainty had led to unrest. But these days many landscape business owners say they’ve stopped wasting so much energy worrying about it. After all, says Mark W. Forsythe, president and COO of Mainscape, in Fishers, Ind., everyone in the industry is in the same boat. “This isn’t just an issue we’re dealing with – it’s an industry-wide issue,” he says. “From that viewpoint, we’ve decided to take a wait-and-see attitude. It appears that rules are still being confirmed and delayed. While we’re continually doing research and trying to understand the latest news, we aren’t taking any specific action or spending a lot of time worrying about it until it’s more concrete.”

As businesses try to understand what may be required of them, many are falling on the cost-sharing provision possibility currently written into the law.

“We will offer and provide coverage for our employees but plan to execute the personal ownership that employees have in partially helping fund that coverage,” says Chris Angelo, president and CEO of Stay Green, a 300-employee commercial company in Santa Clarita, Calif. “We do believe that most will opt out, take the personal risk, and pay the $99 personal penalty for doing so. We estimate that more than 80 percent of our population will opt out because of the economic impact.”

Like many other bigger companies, Angelo says he relies heavily on a team of health care brokers that keep him abreast of the changes – or proposed changes – so that he can continue to plan accordingly.

Many commercial landscapers recognize that their clients also stand to be affected by the ACA.

But Angelo says that because Stay Green generally services larger companies with higher wage earners, most clients were already offering their total benefit packages and may not see the same changes that industries like the green industry could face. The one exception is retail shopping centers, Angelo says.

Forsythe says that many of the commercial companies Mainscape services, and the vendors they work with, have expressed they’re in the same wait-and-see mode that Forsythe finds himself in. “They know they might have to do things differently with their business but they’re not really sure what,” he says. “Honestly, we’ve found that even the insurance companies don’t appear to be 100 percent certain of what changes are ahead.”
 

All in it together.

Because it often seems like these changes are being made since businesses were unwilling or refused to pay for employees health coverage, many business owners make the point that they want to help their employees as best they can. Chris Elmore, president of The Grounds Guys, says that small business owners are often vilified in the media for not wanting to comply with proposed changes.

“I have yet to talk to a franchisee who says they never want to offer health care,” Elmore says. “They always say that they would offer health care if it wasn’t so expensive. We often coach them in that area and help them research the benefits packages out there.

“We often say that even if they’re not providing coverage, it’s very helpful for them to still assist employees in finding a package that is right for them. One benefit of the ACA is that the health care exchange will provide another resource and possibly make it easier for people to shop different plans.”

Like others, Lee says he will wait and see what ultimately becomes the law of the land. Angelo believes that after a couple years of problems, there will likely be additional reform to the ACA. And Forsythe adds that taking it off the “major stressors list” is his objective – at least until more information is available.

Forsythe says one silver lining is that the entire landscape industry will have to deal with the health care question. “The business owners, the employees – the green industry in general – we’re all in the same boat. Collectively when the time comes, hopefully we’ll figure out what works best for us,” he says. “But for now, I will not waste a lot of my time worrying about it.”