Healthcare reform — the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA or ACA) — requires employers with 50 or more full-time equivalent employees (based on the number of workers who put in 30 hours per week on average) to provide health insurance for their employees or face substantial per-employee penalties. And the longer companies wait to put coverage in place, the more difficult — and expensive — it is to obtain.
Health insurance provided by an employer must meet minimum standards to comply with the ACA:
As of 2026
The ACA's employer shared-responsibility mandate has been in effect since 2015 and remains law; the original penalty figures ($2,000 / $3,000 per employee) and the 9.5% affordability threshold are indexed and change annually. The individual-mandate penalty was reduced to $0 in 2019. Confirm current-year figures with your compliance advisor.