San Francisco Employer Mandate for Healthcare

The latest update from Kevin Westlye, Executive Director of the GGRA is that Federal Judge Jeffrey White has not yet rendered his verdict in the GGRA litigation challenging the San Francisco employer mandate for healthcare. The scheduled implementation date of the mandate is January 2, 2008 for businesses with 50 or more employees. The implementation date for businesses with 20 to 49 employees is April 1, 2007.

Although the GGRA remains optimistic that a verdict will be published shortly, the date is rapidly approaching. Although we are hoping for the best, I recommend that you begin to prepare for the worst.

If you have 50 or more employees, are you ready to begin offering healthcare to your employees on January 2nd, 2008?

For more information regarding the mandate, go to:
www.sfgov.org/ols/hcso

"The Health Care Security Ordinance (HCSO) requires covered employers to make health care expenditures for their covered employees and mandates the Department of Public Health (DPH) to create the Health Access Plan (HAP), now called Healthy San Francisco. Healthy San Francisco is only one option by which a covered employer can satisfy its obligation to make the required health care expenditure (HCE). Covered employers may also purchase health insurance coverage for their covered employees, make payments to the City for the benefit of their covered employees, or make the required HCE in a variety of other manners.
Note that in 2008, "covered employees" include any person who has been employed by his or her employer for at least 90 calendar days and performs at least 10 hours of work per week within the geographic boundaries of the City and County of San Francisco."