Community - GolfBusiness

Strategy
A Weighty Decision
With much still unknown, course
operators weigh their options on
the new healthcare mandate
By Steve Eubanks
© 2013 Illustration by Phil Wrigglesworth
One of the biggest adjustments is the new healthcare
law, most provisions of which will go into effect
in 2013 and 2014. The biggest and most concerning
for employers—the insurance mandate—takes effect
January 1, 2014.
The law is sweeping if not yet clear, even to those
who have read it. If an employer has more than 50 fulltime
employees, he or she must either provide health
insurance or pay a penalty of $2,000 per full-time worker,
minus the first 30 employees.
For many golf course operators, this mandate will have
little or no direct impact for the simple reason that individual
golf courses rarely employ more than 50 full-timers.
The problem arises with seasonal workers who stay on the
clock for more than 30 hours a week during the months of
their employment. The law is unclear as to whether these
he election is over. The agenda is set. Now it’s up employees, even though they only work limited months,
T to small business owners—a group that includes would be considered full time. Some lawyers say yes; others
say no. And the law itself is so large and unwieldy it’s
most golf course operators in the United States—to
prepare for the changes that will take place in the impossible to know the specifics until such time as the
coming months and years.
mandates go into effect or are challenged in court.